Mr. Dale was born in Woodford county, Kentucky, May 26, 1832, and is of English ancestry. His parents brought him to Illinois when he was three years old, and he was reared to manhood on his father's farm. His education was received in the same sort of primitive schools in which Abraham Lincoln gained his education, and he was a child while that young statesman was forging to the front in the same state. In 1852 he joined a company of twenty-six men and one woman and started from Carthage, Illinois, with ox teams to cross the plains to California. They passed many who were sick on the road, but they were fortunate in losing none of their number nor any of their stock, and they had no trouble with the Indians. They stopped in Solano county, California, and Mr. Dale worked in the redwood timber for the next two years. In 1854 he engaged in mining, with the usual ups and downs of the profession, at one time being possessed of six thousand dollars. He arrived in Silver City, Nevada, on the 7th of July, 1862, just at the time when the mining excitement was fully under way. He was paid five dollars a day for timbering work in the mine at Gold Hill, where he remained several years. In 1863 the mines were discovered in Austin, and it was one of the liveliest mining towns in the state. Mr. Dale came there in 1866, and this has been his permanent home ever since. He worked for a time as a stationary engineer, and also did much prospecting. He leased some mines, and took out a great deal of valuable metal, some of his assays running as high as three and five thousand dollars a ton. He has since disposed of his claims, and is now living retired from active pursuits in the main.

On August 6, 1857, Mr. Dale was married in Sonoma county, California, to Miss Mary Ellen Hardin. Their son, William Henry, was bom in Healdsburg, Sonoma county, and is now in Los Angeles; Charles E was born in San Francisco and also resides in Los Angeles. Mr. Dale was a Whig in his early political career, and gave his first presidential vote to Winfield Scott in 1852 and his second to Fillmore in 1856. In 1864 he voted for Lincoln, and continued his allegiance to the Republican party until it refused to remonetize silver, since which time he has cast his influence for silver and voted for Bryan. He has always done his own thinking, and is independent of party when its principles do not accord with his. In 1882 Mr. Dale was elected to a seat in the state legislature, and was again elected in 1886, making a creditable record during these two terms. He is a veteran Odd Fellow, having joined the organization in 1856, and is a past representative to the grand lodge of the state and is also a member of the Rebekahs. Mr. Dale has a comfortable residence in Austin, where he spends his old age in the enjoyment of the good things of life and the esteem of his fellow citizens. He loves the town where he has spent so many years and where the principal scenes of his part in life have been played, and he is happy and contented with the present and with the contemplation of the past.

Source:
A History of the State of Nevada: Its Resources and People
By Thomas Wren, Lewis Publishing Company
Published by The Lewis publishing company, 1904