Flames Claim Life Of Butte Rancher At Lonely Residence Country Estate Residence, Once Festive With Social Fetes, Becomes Funeral Pyre of Owner …
Burned to a horrible death mid the luxurious surroundings of his home on Rio Seco ranch, the body of Sam W. Cheyney, widely known mining expert and rancher, was recovered in the smoldering ruins of the crumbled walls of his estate fourteen miles southeast of Chico Sunday afternoon.
The great county house which had been the scene of many gay festivities when friends of Cheyney and his family were entertained there had burned some time early Sunday morning, and the flare of the flames had attracted not a single person to come to the rescue of a man who was alone within.
His charred remains were discovered only after hours of searching by Sheriff R. N. Anderson and a group of his deputies.
The mystery of the circumstances surrounding the origin of the conflagration … has remained in spite of the investigation. … Persons from a dance held at Paradise Saturday night looked out across the valley and saw flames near the site of the Cheyney home about 2:30 a.m., but believe that a straw stack was burning there and considered the matter no further. Raymond Orendorff of Chico, returning from Oroville along the Chico-Oroville road between 1 and 2 o'clock in the morning, saw no evidence of the flames at that time.
Ranch hands … slept soundly through the night without knowing that the building was burning, and only discovered it had been destroyed when they arose Sunday morning about 7:30. They telephoned to Sheriff Anderson immediately, and the investigation of the ruins was begun.
Cheyney spent Saturday afternoon and evening in Chico … and had taken dinner with Mr. and Mrs. James Van Loben Sels … He left their home shortly after 7 o'clock and after writing letters to his family and mailing them at the Hotel Oaks, went back to the ranch where he talked with the men in the bunk house for a few minutes before going on to the big house. He was never seen alive again. …
The family, his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Cheyney, known in Chico as a leader in the club and society circles and a talented musician, and the three children Elizabeth, Sidney and Sam Jr., were in Berkeley where the children are in attendance at the university. …
— Enterprise-Record,
Jan. 11, 1924