We, George Merritt, Lewis Ulrich, Richard Donegan, and Christian Kenney did on the 10th of Aug., 1901, start for a trip through Klamath County. [It was 1902.] We started at an early hour, as Lewis' turnip registered 4 o'clock. We stopped at Ashland to eat ice cream & purchase a few articles. Moving on to the Jeffries ranch, we stopped to eat. The blankets were thrown on the ground, spread out and Dick, Lewis & George lay down and slept. I cleaned the guns, then I got Rex (the dog), went over to the creek and started towards the beds, driving grasshoppers by the hundred. The fellows were nearly covered with them.
    Shortly we packed the wagon & started up the mountain. It was about 5:30 in the afternoon. We arrived at the Boone ranch at 8:30 in the evening. We made camp, cooked supper, spread our beds, talked by the camp fire, and went to sleep.
    That night I heard the dog barking at something in the brush. Dick and I raised up to see what it was, but could not hear or see anything but the cracking of the brush straight ahead of us. I was pretty well scared, as cold chills run over the top of my knowledge box. I told the boys that something was in the brush. (I thought it was a bear but didn't mention my thoughts to the other boys.) They didn't give me any more satisfaction than a lot of grunts. A 38-55 rifle lay at our heads, a shotgun on each side & a 22 rifle & shotgun at our feet. But I was too badly scared to have used it either. But I still will think it was a bear. The fellows says oh--it was only a hog. I finally dropped off to sleep.
    Next morning we got breakfast, packed the wagon, and started to Grizzly Springs on the other side of the mountain. The springs are 10 miles off the main road. Arriving at the terminus [omission], by the aid of a forest ranger we camped 30 yards from a white soda spring and 100 yards from a clear, cold creek, named after the springs. We stayed about 3 days in that place. Grouse and fish were caught & shot by the dozen. The first mess of grouse were cleaned by Dick.
    The next day Dick & I were left at camp while George & Lewis went to Jenny Creek fishing. I told the boys I would cook the grouse. Dick went down the creek to fish. I put the grouse on the fire to cook. I lay on the bed playing a French harp. I didn't watch the stew close enough and the water boiled away. Pretty soon I smelled something burning and run over to the fire to see what it was. It was the grouse, burnt black. I didn't have sense enough to take out the top pieces, but put some flour-water with it to make a gravy. It then was a ---l of a muck. The dog wouldn't even smell of it, let alone eat it.
    When the boys came back the first thing they asked was: "How's the grouse stew." When the news was broke, someone was mad. Such a pow-wow as they did make.They didn't get through talking about it for quite a while. I wasn't mad, 'course not. I didn't cook anymore. Lewis done all the cooking. We had plenty of fish instead of stew.
    I went with the boys to Jenny Creek one day. We had to go on the hillside all the way, making our own trail a good part of the way. I walked & walked till I could walk no walker, so I sat down to rest. I started back to camp before the other boys. I rested a good many times in my journey along Soda Creek. A grouse flew up from the willows and I blazed away at it with a shotgun but missed it. I then went down the bank, crossed the creek and thought I would probably see it again but didn't.
    By that time the other boys were with me. I then went to camp with them. George, who stayed at camp, had prepared a fine meal. The boys said we would start to Lake o' the Woods the next day. We built an Indian fire and George had us perform a few acrobatic feats on 
the bed. We then tumbled in under the blankets.
    We started the next day fairly early and Lewis done the driving over a bank, which was the only way to cross the creek. When we came to Neils' ranch at the forks of the road we stopped and I took some fish over to a forest ranger's camp, as we told him we would. He mailed some letters for us.
    We camped there one night. Henry Ireland came down to the lake and found us in nature's garb. We had a delightful plunge. We went in after supper, so you can imagine it must have been warm. Instead of using lake water anymore Henry Ireland showed us a place to get pure mountain water. The next day we journeyed to Pelican Bay, arriving there Sunday, August 17th, 1902.
    In the afternoon we hired a boat, as they have them to rent at the lodge, and went out on the bay fishing; we caught 2 good-sized fish. These were the first fish and the only ones we caught at the bay. Another day of fishing but no fish. The next day we all went out in a boat; we went to the end of the bay and then up a narrow creek, what they call the cutoff. I think it was a cutoff, because we could hardly get our boat through, the tules are so thick. You had to take the oars and stick them against the bank and push the boat along. Lewis thought that was not fast enough, so he got out on the bank and took hold of the rope that is used to tie the boat, started to run along the bank. Pretty soon down he went in the water and mud up to his waist.
    We finally got through the place into Crystal Creek. That is a beautiful creek. We went up the creek a long ways & then came down it into the Bay. Just before we came to the mouth of the creek and on the bay it started to rain. Lord, but it did come down. The wind blew, which made the bay full of whitecaps. Lewis started to pray, and George and Dick were quarreling about the guiding of the boat. Straight across the water we went for the other shore. Keeping close along the shore, we rowed to camp. Everything at camp was wet but a satchel in which I had dry clothes enough for all. That night all tried to sleep with mosquito bar over our faces, but sleep we could not. The pesky brutes felt to us like they were big enough to be belled. They had bills long enough to stick through all the blankets. Woe be unto the poor devil that would try to sleep. We stood the siege for two hours.
    Finally we all got up, put the bedclothes under the wagon and lay around like so many hogs near a smudge I built out of dry wood with green brush on top to make a smoke. George Merritt's face was as big as two men's faces. His eyes were swollen nearly shut. We would laugh at him and then he would say you damn fools, why are you laughing at me, if you had it you wouldn't be so laughable. Just about the time you would get your eyes shut a mosquito would come singing at you followed by a thousand others. We thought morning would never come.
    We got a room from Mrs. Wicks in a little cottage. It was small with only 2 single beds. We made them double, as two slept in a bed, George and Dick, Lewis and I. Our blankets, ammunition, fishing tackle & etc. were carried up to the room. The first night we had a roughhouse; Lewis socked me one and that involved all of us in a general rough and tumble. I was last one to bed and was trying to do something by the candlelight, which the other boys were trying to blow out. It was at last blown out by Lewis. I grabbed a bucket of water and threw it on Lewis' drawers which he had on him. He then got hot, I didn't, as I was already.
    The next night all but Lewis were in bed and I told Lewis to go over, soak George & Dick and come back. He went over and come down upon them and them there was another roughhouse. Lewis lit the candle and found Dick behind the bed while George was sitting in a chair with his feet in it all propped up. He only had a shirt on his back. You can imagine how he looked. The light out again. Pretty soon whizz comes a pillow and takes me right the side of the head. I saw stars for a while.
    Dick and Lewis went over in the swamp the next day to kill some ducks but did not succeed. Instead they came back as wet as drowned rats. We went over to Jim McCully's camp the next day; on the way back the dog (Rex) killed about a basket full of snakes. He would grab them with his mouth by the back and pieces would fly every-way.
    We left the bay Saturday, August 23rd, 1902. On the road Lewis and Dick killed 3 big grouse We stopped a short time on Cherry Creek, while the boys went up the creek fishing. They returned in an hour or so with 12 Dolly Varden trout. Dick wore my shoes & they were so big for him that his socks came completely off his feet and in the toe of the shoes. While they were gone I broke in the grub box and got some bread, butter, & blackberry jam. Then I lay on my overcoat to sleep. I procured the horses that were staked out while the boys got some "eat." Lewis shot a duck on the headwaters of Crystal Creek but found it only to be a mud duck.
    We started the plugs and soon arrived at 7-mile Creek. Driving through the gate at the Gardner ranch we camped in a grove of tamarack trees. I went to the creamery one and ¼ miles up the creek and got some cream, milk and cheese. I only paid 20¢ for 2 qts. of rich cream & 5 cts. for a water bucket half full of fresh milk. Had fish for supper. In the morning we had the grouse with a big pan of gravy on the side.
    The next day a fellow was at camp and told the boys that the Indians and white men were going to play ball at the fort. This made the boys crazy to play ball. About noon we placed the sled and drove on to the fort. When we got there we found out that the authorities would not let the Indians play with the whites, as they could not play peaceable. I got out of the wagon and bought some candy, (about 50 years old) beef steak, & asked for the mail. On the road we bought a bale of hay from an old lady, and inquired for the distance to the lake. We stopped at a place that is called Wildcat Camp on the bank of Annie Creek. It was 13 miles from there to the lake. We found a hole in the ground that contained some water as cold as ice. Next morning none of us wanted to get out of our beds, as it was so cold.
    The beefsteak that was bought at the fort being fried was relished fine. The flapjacks also tasted good. The road goes right along the banks of Annie Creek from Wildcat up to the head of the creek, so we could admire the scenery all the way. The creek runs out of the mountain like from under a bridge. Camped about two and and one-half miles from Crater Lake about noon. In the afternoon at 3:15 all started to walk to the summit. It was quite a climb. The lake was before our eyes like a big looking glass. The first time for Dick, but twice for Dutch & I.
    We went out on a point called Shag Rock, where the wall was perpendicular to the water's edge. The men that owned the boats below wanted 3 dollars to take us over to the island. We thought it was too much and decided not to go, but afterward changed our minds. It is so steep the most of the way down to the lake that steps had to be made. From the bank the boats below looked about as big as the top of a common saddle. A big tall fellow whose name was Kahler took us over. Dutch was in the bow of the boat, Dick in the stern, Kahler & I in the middle.
    The water was a sight to see. It was as blue as any indigo ever seen. It was so blue that you had to dip up some to see whether it was clear or not. It was rather dangerous-looking to me but Kahler said if we all sat still it was safe. The distance, 2⅛ miles, was covered in the short time of 25 minutes. I don't know whether you should say landed or rocked, as the shore is nothing but lava rock. He told us the way to the top of the peak, saying to keep to the left, as the right was nearly all ashes.
    Climbing and climbing, we thought the top would never be reached it was so steep. When the top was reached there was the crater, nothing in the world but a funnel-shaped hole in the top of the mountain. It was a little hard to breathe up there. Down I plunged to the bottom of the crater, followed by the other boys. In the bottom was some snow, & after a snowball fight, I whistled a two-step and Dick with Lewis danced it on the snow. Out on top again we started down the mountain led by Dutch, who went at 25 ft. to the jump, zig, zag, down the mountain to the water's edge. It took us 25 minutes to climb it and 3½ minutes to descend. Dick fell and hurt his foot at the first jump and could not keep up with us.
    Once again on the mainland we ascended the bank and went to camp, arriving at camp 7:30 in the evening. It was too dark to cook supper so we ate crackers, coffee & row beans. The beans were partly cooked. We made our beds over a ditch on the hillside, the best place that could be found. After singing and yelling for an hour or so we shut the doors. The fire which was built above our beds was not quite put out, and the sparks were lighting all around us. Dutch awoke Dick and I by a yell; he had gone to the creek in his drawers to get water to make out the fire.
    Going along Castle Creek and crossing Union Creek, we stopped at the Rogue River Natural Bridge as we supposed. I stayed in the wagon while Dick and Dutch went to hunt for it. They came back disgusted and said we can't find the damned bridge. I told the boys all the time it was further down, but they didn't believe me. We went on further and found a sign on a tree that said: 1½ miles to the natural bridge. We camped about 300 yards from it. It is a sight I can't very well explain.
    Shortly it thundered, with lightning and rain. To avoid getting wet the wagon sheet was stretched over some poles and our beds placed under it. We ate some beans, also a good many gnats there we could not avoid, as they were so thick I guess I and the rest of the boys ate 50 apiece. The camp was named No See Em Fly Camp. All of us came near dying before morning, it was so hot under the tent.
    The next day when we passed through Prospect we bought a watermelon. Dutch stayed at the wagon while Dick and I went down to see the Mill Creek Falls. They were beautiful as the sun shone on them, making myriads of rainbows all about us. We got quite wet from the spray. Stopping by an irrigating ditch, we ate our watermelon and had a fight with the rinds. Rex the dog near ate up some hogs that were stealing hay from the horses. Over a dusty hot road we got some hay, the last on the trip, at a Mr. Higinbotham's.
    Crossing the bridge on Butte Creek, we camped where an old sawmill once sat. A teamster told us it was the coldest place in Jackson County, but we didn't think it was cold. For breakfast all the potatoes, cornmeal, and coffee were made up. The pancake flour was also stirred up. We plastered it on the hogs, trees, barns and all around camp. The boys kept grumbling about fleas bothering them in the night, but I wasn't bothered a bit by them. We packed the wagon for the last time and started for home.
    Arriving at Eagle Point about noon, we got some oysters, sardines, deviled ham and crackers from George Brown. Got a watermelon from a man that had some in a blacksmith shop. The ham & oysters were very rank, as they were not the best brands. We ate the truck while the horses ate in a nearby barn. We arrived home in the evening at 4 o'clock tired and ---- dirty. We nearly fainted when we heard of Chas. Nickell's and Miss Potter's marriage.
Chris J. Kenney, Southern Oregon Historical Society Research Library MS179


    Born on S.W. corner at Elm & 3rd sts., Jacksonville, Oregon in the year 1883, July 31, to Thomas Joseph Kenney and Rosa Ulrich Kenney. My father Tom as everyone knew him was a harness maker, learning the trade from Jerry Nunan and Wm. Judge in the city of Ashland in the early '70s, then applying it in first a small frame building on the north side of California St. two doors east of the drug store. In the early 1880s he purchased the David Linn bldg., adjoining the little shop, a brick bldg., and David Linn moved his furniture store across the street on the corner of Main and Oregon, the Masonic Temple today, and Kenney expanded in his new place and made all kinds of harnesses and built many fine saddles from the rawhide frames.
    All sewing was done with wax ends of hemp thread. Many a one harness I seen him make, working it with black wax and rolling it on his canvas apron, holding it in the wood clamps at the front of the bench wheel he sat astride of, really a harness maker's horse. It was held taut by a sort of pedal pushed down with his foot to draw a rawhide cord pulling the wood clamps together and inserted in a proper notch like a brake on a wagon to set it, then as the piece of leather which was held to be sewed together with another. An awl makes a hole to start sewing, and another and each time in each hand and drew tight making a stitch. I heard him say many a time my chest feels so sore sewing all day long.
    People who washed their harness free from sweat and mud and of course some manure and oiled it with neatsfoot oil, black harness soap being used to free the leather, had a harness that was soft and easier on a horse and lasted longer because it would not rot and break. Neatsfoot oil is made from the marrow of bones, therefore a natural animal oil.
    Father was born on the corner of Main and 1st sts., December 23rd 1855, to the union of Daniel Moe Kenney and Elizabeth T'Vault Kenney. The Rogue River Indians were making an attack on the town and he was 6 weeks old and as the Bruner Building was brick with iron doors it was used as a good refuge for women and children, and he with a few other women, his mother included and children were taken in there for safety, and the men could guard them with their muskets and protect them. Dr. Haines of the S.O.C. in Ashland is incorrect where he says the now library bldg. Bruner was never used as a refuge. [The building could have been used a refuge, but the town was never attacked.] He just does not know in other words has been misinformed.
    My father, Tom Kenney, could not buy this building but rented it from the Bruners for many years, using it as a warehouse of his later hardware and grocery business. The rent was 8 dollars per month, and it was at the time of rental almost twice as long as it is today. Being idle for many years, the roof rotted and the south and west wall gradually deteriorated from constant moisture, leaching the mortar and they gave way. A public subscription placed an aluminum roof thereon and then restoration was done on the inside of the good portion, making it a good building to house the library.
    Father had a good many teams of horses, who transported supplies of all kinds to the Blue Ledge mine, 5 miles above Copper, Calif. in Del Norte Co., and the owners of these teams hauled by the lb., 75¢ per 100#.
    The mine was owned by Robert S. Towne of New York City, and as they had an open account with T. J. Kenney, my father, he desired to know their responsibility and through the Wadhams and Co. wholesale grocers, Portland, he procured Towne's rating. It was stated he was rated at 70 million in Bradstreet, so Father sent anything they ordered and when checked in by Elliott Turnbull, the Co.'s regular receiver, a check was sent without hesitancy, so it was what one should say a cash business.
    From the corner of Oregon and Main sts. to the corner of and including that corner of 1st St., China shacks occupied the entire south side of Main St. west. Wo Hop had a general store for Chinamen on 1st and Main, running in debt to Tom Kenney for food and etc., and his business was the (Chinks) attached and of all the China candy, firecrackers, games, rattan, opium, pillows, paints, china, coins, cards, checks, silk handkerchiefs, green, red, junk, real China silk, dishes and heavens knows not all, my sisters and I had many unusual playthings. I think I possess one coin brass thusly--[sketch of coin with square hole in center]
    Lin Wong had a laundry adjoining Wo Hop's store. I recall the Chinese laundryman pumping water from a well a block below his laundry back of Stella Levy's and Pauline Karewski's stone and brick warehouse to store grain in, wrecked years ago by snow caving in the roof and wrecking the walls--material took by many years ago.
    China Mary operated a brothel many years; her fingernails I'd swear were an inch long. Her wide pantaloons covered those her body supports at the ankles about the size of robins. She was good-hearted, and youngsters had no concern of fear, ya ya. Chinamen all had very long queues below their waists.
    Mr. E. C. Brooks had a barn and kept a gray gentleman horse therein standing day after day. With no other horse about he became ugly, and Brooks took him to get a drink at the city horse trough and well corner, at the drug store, and one day the horse took his arm in his teeth and raised him a foot off terra firma and he had to sell him or he'd been killed.
    Brooks operated an apothecary shop in the Masonic Bldg. at the present barber shop, when I was a boy, living where Bill Dobbins lives today, restored beautifully. Thomas G. Reames, father of A. E. Reames, U.S. Senator appointed to fill the unexpired term of Senator Steiwer, resigned, was so vividly remembered by me and a number of my good friends was in the banking business with Cornelius (Beek) Beekman a number of years before it was operated as C. C. Beekman Banking House.
    The little brick bldg. on the N.W. corner of Oregon and Calif. sts.. never housed a U.S. Post Office, David Linn's son Fletcher, owner of Oregon Furniture Mfg. Co., Portland, told me when he was here in 1957. That sign on the corner put there by a former member of a former defunct Chamber of Commerce was the most ridiculous he ever saw. I contended it was not true, and he was 10 years older than I.
    George Love, James M. Cronemiller and Geo. Bloomer, a once Jackson Co. Treasurer, and an absconder of the Co. money, disappeared and never was located. Mrs. Lydia Jones, a resident of Jacksonville, Ore., in Block 17 where I was raised, took a trip to St. Paul, Minn. to visit her daughter, Bell Davis, a wife of a railroad executive, Chicago and Northwestern R.R., and she told us my parents I heard her say she saw Bloomer in Chicago and he recognized Mrs. Jones and immediately darted from her sight, possibly fearing she would call an officer and report. I was in my teens but I recall it very vividly. Above in the 2nd paragraph I started to say the grocery firm of Love, Cronemiller and Bloomer operated in the Orth business building owned by the Warners today as a glad processing bldg.
    Max Muller was a postmaster in Jacksonville, not "Mueller," as has been published time without number. [Muller signed his name "Müller."] Muller had two daughters and two sons. Sophia Muller married Otis Krause, brother of Margaret Krause Taylor, Joseph Murphy son of John Murphy, once a Jacksonville marshal living where Eugene Bennett lives, married Muller's other daughter, I cannot recall her given name (now recalled Betty). Isaac Muller and William Muller were the two boys. (Betty I've just recalled her given name May 19th '68.) Muller was a Jackson County Treasurer, having a store in the Redmen's Building main floor, where J'ville Tavern operates, and around the turn of the century Tom Kenney, my father, bought the stock, selling out partially, then moved the balance to his place of business to include with his hardware and grocery adjoining the drug store building, corner Ore. and Calif.
    My grandfather, Daniel Moe Kenney, and John Appler operated a trading post in a clapboard building at the corner of Calif and Main, N.E. corner. And my grandmother Elizabeth T'Vault Kenney particularly told me time without number never let anyone tell you they sold liquor, they never did. She did, however, tell me many times that an epidemic of scurvy was on and they sold salt thusly, gold on one side of the scales and salt on the other. A trade was accomplished when the scales balanced. [This episode is an element of the Starvation Winter story; the scurvy tale is unknown.]
    George H. Himes, secretary of the Oregon Historical Society (Portland, Ore. for many years) made a try every year to interview Elizabeth T'Vault Kenney on early-day history. I believe many would-be facts could be refuted if his records were looked over.
    Col. William Green T'Vault was my great-grandfather, publisher of the Oregon Spectator at the edge of Oregon City. A bronze plaque graces the paper mill's office as the spot, in the very early 1840s. Its history I recall, 1844. Then he was the first postmaster of Jackson County at the Dardanelles. A granite monument with a bronze plaque thereon signifies the spot. I was at the dedication when Siskiyou Sites Foundation dedicated it.
    T'Vault was the first Postmaster General of the Oregon Territory and the first speaker of the territorial government of Oregon.
    Mrs. J. C. Whipp was Squire Hoffman's dtr., sister of C. C. Beekman's wife, and sister of Mrs. David Linn. J. C. Whipp has many beautiful monuments to his credit in the Jacksonville Cemetery. He operated the Jacksonville Marble Works.
    John Lyden of Essexville, Michigan, bought the property at the N.W. corner of Oregon and Calif. St. where the famous old Lyden House stood, and was millwright for the Iowa Lumber and Box Co., first up Walker Creek B.W. of town and later at Lily Prairie above the city reservoir up the right-hand fork of Jackson Creek. Lyden bought this property from Tom Kahler, bro. of lawyer Wes Kahler, shortly before the turn of the century. His family came west and joined him in the year 1903. Mary Foster Lyden and two daughters, Helen and Anna Irene.
    Anna (Nan) Irene taught school at Applegate for several terms, staying at the Benedict home, which burned years ago. After a 4 years' courtship and after the death of her mother, she went to see a sister, Mrs. John B. Abernathy at 232 Holcomb Avenue, Detroit, Michigan. Anna Irene, I'm speaking of, and only a short time after the writer journeyed to that spot to claim her as his wife, and the happy knot was tied the 25th day of September 1907. We honeymooned for three months in the East, spending much time at Niagara Falls.
    To our union and during 58 years we were the very proud parents of two adorable children, Mrs. Fosma J. B. Rood and Donald Lyden Kenney. Donald was taken from us in March 1957 with a heart attack at 49 years and had been with the Cal-Ore Power Co. for many years, a tremendous blow to us.
    Year 1914--We filed and homesteaded 35 acres on Yale Creek and patented it by Pres. Woodrow Wilson, and it still is free in the Kenney name.
    The year 1960 brought disaster to the rose of my life--Mrs. K lost her mind, and I cared for her for 5 years at home. It was my heart's desire. Then in Nov. '65 I was alone in this different world, may God bless her and keep her.
    Nan was a brilliant woman and owned many pieces of property in Jacksonville. One piece of property was 7 lots of Block #1 and 5 lots of Block 44. The new 1968 U.S. Post Office and the old R.R.V.R.R. depot sites she owned for over 30 years. I give her credit in full for our full success in life.
    The Lyden House, that stood on the corner of Ore. and Calif. sts., a small portion, that facing Oregon St., was the Jacksonville Marble Works for many years, J. C. Whipp, proprietor, who was married to Squire Hoffman's daughter, sister of Mrs. C. C. Beekman. Chris Keegan was employed by Whipp and prepared bases for tombstones out of native sandstone. His home was located on the N.E. corner of 3rd and D sts. J. C. Whipp was a devout Presbyterian.
    Mrs. Anna (Nan) Kenney bought the John Orth brick 8-room, 2-story residence in the 1940s. The same was built in the year 1868. John Wilkinson gave me that information; his mother was an Orth, Flora.
    The old Lyden House was painted by many artists many times during the latter 1950s. One quite noted artist, Fritz Wertz, done it often, I recall, as he visited us many times. Owen Keegan was circuit court crier at the Jackson County courthouse in Jacksonville for many years and janitor.
    Many a time when I was a boy before my teens did I ring a hand bell to announce a meeting at the town hall by the city dads, going as far as the ct. hse., yelling at the top of my voice. I received fifty cents, and it was big pay.
    Judge Frank TouVelle stormed when I charged him 50¢ an hour for spading. He was lauded to the skies after leaving this ball of dirt, and when he was wanted at the courthouse, County Judge during his term, he was found often at The Quiz card room in Medford.
    Col. Sargent with his speeches kept the courthouse from going to Medford for some spell. It was moved after the 3rd election; five miles was a long trip for the lawyers.
    The first depot in Medford to serve the Rogue River Valley Railroad was not located on West Main St., as it was located on the north side of 6th St. east of the main store of Big Pines Lumber Co. today, May 1968.
    My mother's brother, Wm. Ulrich, had a baker's shop in the room now a lounge of the Masons in their Temple in Jacksonville before I came down Salt Creek. I wasn't born until July 31st, 1883.
    During my lifetime--Mrs. Mattie Thompson baked there. Tom Norris, bro. of John Norris, run a bakery there employing James Anderson & Dave (spic & span, immaculately clean). He put out fine bread and pastry. Al Learned operated a confectionery store, where the liquor store is today. The above bakery in the Masonic Bldg. was operated by Dan McQuade and Carl Larson, who married Tillie Fick, sister of Peter and Ida Fick-Wilson. They had two children, Carl and Thelma Larsen.
    A John Wilson was mail carrier to Copper, California for a number of years, he being a brother to Ephram called Curly, quite a ball player during the time Geo E. Neuber had a baseball team, called Neuber's Gold Bricks. Charley Strube played in the team, in later years became owner of the Seals in San Francisco and then Neuber worked for Strube at the baseball park there, a queer coincidence but true. Henry Orth of the Orth family was a top baseball pitcher in the Neuber Gold Bricks team.
    James Watson, son of B. Watson, a famous attorney in Portland who married Eleanor Jane Kubli, daughter, and Baxter owner of the No Percentage Drug Store of San Francisco, Calif., at the turn of the [20th] century during the early [19] hundreds, and Henry Kubli, an Applegate cattle rancher with Henry Orth, made many a trip to Cinnabar Springs--also in the group was Kaspar Kubli who was completely cured from catarrh, and he had it in a most terrible form.
    My darling wife and I operated these springs for 7 seasons in the early 1940s. (I) Chris Kenney, selling the famous water and giving hot baths in the water. It was widely known in Siskiyou County for its curative powers for rheumatism. Many Portuguese folks would swear by it, and descendants of many of their families I'm sure will also speak well of it today (1968).
    Mrs. [Alice] Applegate Sargent, her husband a retired Colonel, a strategist of the Army in first World War, bought the noted catalog Jerry Nunan residence built in the 1890s and she bought the Bruner Building and deeded it to the Native Daughters of Jacksonville when she passed, and they had all passed and Leona Ulrich Hanna was the only one left and she deeded it to the City of Jacksonville for a library. She had been a librarian when the library was located first in the U.S. Hotel building.
    Newman and Rachel Fisher operated a clothing store in the brick building now occupied by Ole Bakke, a druggist in the 1880s. Ten thousand dollars in the house and the children are crying for bread, what is that funny smell I hear Papa's feet are dead and their children, Gertrude, Fanny, Ben and Charley; yiddishers usually have large families.
    Patrick Donegan Jr. and Senior operated a blacksmith shop on the corner of Calif. and 4th sts., where the myrtlewood shop is today, July 1968.
    John S. Orth married Dee Ankeny. He was a butcher in early life and a banker years after with Medford National Bank. His wife's father owned and operated the famous Sterling mine hydraulic. A ditch, regular canal, was taken out of the headwaters of right-hand fork of little Applegate and many miles long. Mayette Gilson, daughter of Tom Gilson, Sterling, married Antone Rose a Portuguese who was ditch rider for many years. Henry Ankeny was owner of the Sterling mine.
    Peter Boushey was the culprit who fired the old brass cannon down north Third St. during a soldiers and sailors reunion from its setting at the intersection of California and Third on the cistern, therein battering all windows in the U.S. Hotel. Kentucky Rifle Powder, all on bond from Tom Kenney's hdwe. store, was bought and socks for wadding from Jerry Nunan's general store in the Kubli hdwe. store bldg. being rammed until the rod jumped out, then with a long hot rod touched off.
    The cannon was loaned to Ashland for a 4th of July celebration and was never returned. Also a Concord thoroughbrace stage coach that sat under the rear porch of the Veit Schutz brewery for many months was loaned to the City of Ashland as the said cannon and never returned.
    Mrs. Sadie Coghill, the talented oil painter artist, was (is) the daughter of Beecher Danford. Viola Simmonds, her sister, Flossie Walter Zigler Monroe, lived in Medford many years over operating a grocery store on East Main St. Both deceased a number of years after Viola was separated from Simmons. She married a Mr. Hollis of the firm of Medford Hardware and Furniture Co., who had a concrete 2-story building on west side of North Bartlett St., now (1968) demolished for car parking space. Other members of this firm are Doc Butler, C. G. Conklin, Horace Nicholson, also as stated above Mr. Hollis. He had a lovely home in the grove between Jacksonville and Medford now Highway 238 (now 1968), so. side of the highway across from Hollywood Orchard when Flossie Zigler Monroe lived on a homestead north of and adjoining the Arthur Kleinhammer Ranch now the Circle G Ranch. Zigler worked for Kleinhammer on the ranch and for the Forest Service 1914. Zigler (Walter) was a pro-German everyone knew.
    On this 15th day of Aug. '68 a thought popped into my head at 85, July 31, 1968. An Italian prospector who lived in a cabin alone close in the Jville area, Italian Dick, Richard Traverso, I recall so vividly one who was very happy after discovery of a rich pocket of virgin gold in the nearby hills and would be in town for weeks at a time imbibing old John Barleycorn Cyrus Noble, which was at the time, namely 1898 during the war with Spain, and when well loaded with that firewater he could and did pour forth the gravest singing one enjoyed so much. He had a tenor voice, and how many times did I hear him sing that, one of the sweetest songs ever written. "A Spanish cavalier stood in his retreat, and on his guitar song a tune dear the music so sweet, he did oft times repeat the blessings of my country and you dear, say darling."
    Nan, during our 58 years together how I loved her, God only knows the very rose of my life.
    At this writing on the corner of 4th and D streets directly west across the 4th St. from St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Jville, stands a two-story house owned now by the Kings. My father of (Chris J. Kenney) at 85, July 31, 1968, had this house built during the year 1898, at the contract fee of $1320, by Art Nicholson, brother of Horace Nicholson, a partner of the Medford firm of Medford Hardware and Furniture Co., who were located on the corner of Sixth and Bartlett sts. in a concrete building 2-story, Medford, now wrecked several years ago, ground space being used as parking lot. The architect for the Kenney 2-story, 5-bedroom home in block 17 Jville, spoken of above, was Fred Weeks, one of the family of Weeks and Orr, furniture dealers in Medford for years. I, Chris J. Kenney, was raised at this home from the age of 15 until the year I was 24, when Anna Irene Lyden and I were united for a life of 58 years together to the one I loved so dearly. This most happy event occurred the 25 day of September 1907 at 232 Holcomb Ave. in the city of Detroit, Michigan, by Rev. Locke of the Episcopalian church of that city then.
    I lived with my parents Tom and Rosa in a 7-room house just adjoining this 2-story house to the south until it was burned by an arsonist. It was bought by John Lyden, father of my darling wife and deeded to her. The fire loss occurred during her ownership. Donald L. Kenney and Mrs. Fosma N. Rood were the jewels she presented me with.
    Donald we lost with a heart attack in March 1957, and Fosma lived in Anchorage, Alaska, for 30 years, her husband with the Dept. of Interior retired just before the earthquake, and they built a home on Lake Teslin, Yukon Territory, Alaska Highway Canada mile 837. Coming south during the year 1968 to look at a 177-acre wooded piece of property Cypress Island, one of the San Juan group of Puget Sound, they had owned but had not seen for 30 years. They anticipate returning in October 1968 to live thereon?
Chris J. Kenney, Southern Oregon Historical Society Research Library MS179


    Veit Schutz was visited reasonably often by me at the brewery, which was torn down and should not have been. It was one of the buildings that could have been roofed and have fitted in with many old buildings to have been visited by many tourists who come every year to visit old Jacksonville. My mission to the brewery was to get hop yeast for my mother, Rosa Ulrich Kenney, to make bread with. The vessel I had to procure it was a plain tin bucket with lid holding about a quart. Veit was a small short man with a handlebar mustache. The location of the brewery was just west of 1st St. on the south side of California St. across from Charley Shulse home.

    The Charley Shulse house is still standing on property being bought from Anna L Kenney and Chris J. Kenney by James and Shela Tucker. My late wife Anna, the rose of my life, was taken from me the 18th of October 1965.

    The steep-roofed house that adjoined the brewery property mentioned above was formerly owned (now owned by Bill Dawkins) by E. C. Brooks, who had an apothecary shop (now drug store) in the Masonic Building (now barber shop) on Calif. St. Mr. Brooks was a small man & nearly alway had a carnalion in his mouth. He also owned a gray stallion, kept in a barn adjoining the city hall property to the west and led the prancing animal to the water trough at the public well on the corner of Oregon & California streets (where the Ole Bakke Jacksonville drug store is now located) to drink. He was full of life, naturally being so as he made no services and one day he grabbed Mr. Brooks by the arm & lifted him off the ground for a couple of feet. The old gent soon made disposal of the critter.



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 2 (MS pages 2,3)

    Jeremiah (Jerry) Nunan, grandfather of Donald Russell, president of the Southern Pacific railroad, first lived in the house at the corner of Oregon & C streets, east side of Oregon & north side of C, where the Van Calders live now.

    Charles Nickell, editor of the Democratic Times of Jacksonville, a weekly newspaper, occupied his building on the north side of C Street, corner of 3rd & C, west side of 3rd St. It was known as the Times office, a 2-story building with a open stairway on the west side of the building

    In the 1930s it was mined under and I Chris Kenney saw $150 in gold in one gold pan taken out there.

    At the corner of C & Oregon sts. north side of C & west side of Oregon, The "Tippecanoe" W. J. Plymale livery stable was located

    The well-known "Lyden House" occupied the southeast corner of Block 1, corner of California and Oregon streets. It was a building occupied by J. C. Whipp as the Jacksonville Marble Works, being purchased by John Lyden at the turn of the century, built on and operated as a rooming house and restaurant, known as the "Hooligan Restaurant," John Lyden and Mary Lyden, parents of the late Nan L. Kenney operated it some years, after their passing, Nan L Kenney settled the estate as will-appointed executrix. She bought the property and owned it as also all of block #1 except 1 lot on the northwest corner of said block. We, Nan & I, (Chris Kenney) had a second hand store therein for years

    The Reeds owned the above-mentioned lot, and it was bought by Jas. and Shelia Tucker the Round House of the Rogue River Valley Railroad owned by the W. S. Barnum family, W. S., W. H., John & George. John was the youngest conductor in the U.S. Bill (W. H.) & a Swiss gentleman were the maintenance crew. W. H. could make a piano accordion, clarinet, or saxophone really talk. Many a time it was 2 a.m. before going home from the depot.



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney page 3 (MS pages 4,5)

    Adjoining the city hall to the so. on Ore. St. was formerly a house where the Walter (?) Thompson family lived and kept a restaurant Mr. Arthur, Flora, Minnie, Clay, Chas, Toots,

    A blacksmith shop graced the corner opposite the Odd Fellows hall to the so. and Augustine Schmidling ("Snuffer") operated it now the property of Chris Kenny, husband of the late Anna L. Kenney.


The Herman Helms' garden spot formerly occupied the S.E. corner of block 27, today a nice home. Mrs. Barnes lives there before the fire years ago a livery stable held forth there, and on the corner above (Feb. 5) previous to the blacksmith shop the Franco-American Hotel blessed the spot, burning with the livery stable.

    Madam De Roboam who run the F.A. Hotel, met Holt (a brick mason) and they become man & wife and built the U.S. Hotel. She was a daughter of Jean De Roboam "Kino" he was always known by all. Knew very little English and would say: Kino stan. Therefore the nick name stuck.

    Where the library is today was used as a warehouse for years, nearly twice as long as it [now] is, rented for $8.00 per mo. by "Tom" - T. J. Kenny for years; the Jew owners would not sell.


14 This warehouse just spoken of previously stored at one time a carload of dynamite overnight and was shipped by team the following day to the then developing Blue Ledge Mine above Copper, Calif. We, Tom Kenney and Son, had near a dozen teams hauling to the Blue Ledge mine supplies & freight of all descriptions. Considerable more than 300 men worked there. John Collins operated a diamond drill at the mine for 2½ years.


Memoirs of Chris J. Kenny Page 4 (MS pages 5,6)

    During the time John F. Miller was Jacksonville P.M. the U.S. gov. was to have iron pins placed on the line between Cal. and Ore., and they wrote Mr. Wendt, Henry Sr. the team driven mail carrier then to give a bid for hauling, he refused so they sent them parcel post and he was forced to haul them without extra pay.

    A man by the name of Reeves hydraulicked to recover gold far up Rich Gulch. John Dunnington, a butcher here in Jville, married his daughter Della. The water for the giant was brought from Poormans Creek over the very top of the Jacksonville hill and around in a mining ditch. I very vividly remember seeing the water running in this ditch.

    Some people, especially the French, not all however, love garlic as well as us all Americans, except they to might not make the use of it to a large extent, but one Frenchman I knew very well derived the name of "Snuffer" on account of having a catarrhic ailment and at times it was quite difficult for him to breathe at these times the opening of one's face for the admission of the necessities of life would emit, if to close an abominable odor which was not pleasant for one to take a very popular U.S. postmaster that held the postmastership in old J'ville for a good many years and also had the honor bestowed on him for keeping a very well kept & beautiful office, with hanging plants & etc. told me he had great difficulty in keeping the last meal he had partaken of down when "Snuffer" came in to have his mail handed to him. Sur or given names not mentioned.

    Once a man (stranger) rode a horse through town California St. in a gallop 8 mi. per hr was the speed law. John N. Huffer was Marshal--he the rider


Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 5 (MS pages 7,8)

    Continued.
    made the turn So. off Calif. St. and the Marshal kneeled down with long-barreled pistol and took aim at the horse's legs, but did not score a hit, however the man drew tight rein & the horse put forward both front feet & stopped as quick as good breaks do with Auto's today. The marshal thereupon took the then law breaker & threw him in the "calaboose" the bullet from said pistol broke the window after a ricochet on a stone in the street, in the entrance door to the City hall that is still used to this day This I witnessed, so help me God.
    This "calaboose" is used as a shop & toll "safe keep" by the cities Superintendent Albert Heckert today.

    Wo Hop, operated a oriental store carrying, imported, nuts candies games "real firecrackers" syrups tobacco & etc to numerous to mention at the northeast corner of 1st & Main sts. west end of the block, west from the todays city hall

    The old double Fire Hand pumper at the Museum was purchased the year I Chris J Kenney was born, 1883.

    Occupant of the 3rd house east of the Presbyterian Church ("Jville") on East Calif. St. over 50 years ago, Mrs. Kate Limburger, Court (Circuit) stenographer for the very honorable and beloved the Circuit Judge, H.K. Hanna Sr. had a small white Fox Terrier dog with enough crook at the end of his tail to signify it was very similar to the figure 9, and not to far away a portion of his body could be denoted as an 0, therefore he was always known as #90, the 0 portion had been painted an ultramarine blue and the retention of that color was for many moon's, a very popular young man, who operated a well known butcher shop in this town, was the person who wielded the brush to apply the aforesaid paint.




Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 6 (MS pages 8, 9, 10)

    Charles Berwert, who worked for the above named butcher, Henry (space for his name "Sir") had a mulligan at odd times in the rear of this butcher shop, and the meat portion of it was a Spanish chicken, caught by a fishhook bated with a hunk of beef, The chickens belonged to Charles Shulse the Circuit Court Baliff for years who lived in a nearby block and kept a flock to help living with the eggs

    Jess Huggins a prospector living on the left fork of Jackson Creek (now followed by Jville Ruch Highway #238X) made a rather unique noise maker used in a republican torchlight procession through the streets of Jacksonville when the mud was considerable deeper than to the ankle when W.J. Bryan lost the presidency against William McKinley. He took a wooden nail Keg and took out the bottom and placed a green piece of cowhide over it and drove one of the hoofs down over it, then knotted a narrow piece of hide, threaded it from the inside of the keg. when the hide and strap were thoroughly dry he put on a pair of leather gloves on which a goodly supply of powdered rosin was applied. With the keg under the left arm close again the ribs and held firm the glove on the right hand was pulled along the narrow cowhide strp so to speak and Oh - such a noise it shure was a nerve wrecker.

    Louis Engledow a painter living in J'ville on C street across from Jerry Nunans feed warehouse had bought half dollars worth of whole coffee beans and was conversing with Nunan in front of his first place of business adjoining the U.S. Hotel and during the coarse of their conversation Engledow Called Jerry a liar, the sound had hardly faded when Jerry planted a right Hook to the mans mouth and down he went to the gravel street and coffee went everway.



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney page 7 (MS pages 10, 11)

    Dick Chapell a painter & paperhanger and last but not least tin horn gambler and booze hound more crooked than a corkscrew, for he never paid his just debts if he could crawl out of it. was papering a house where Mary Weterer lived, a very fine person and had been a seamstress for years on S.Oregon he had slacked off to take on some more of old John Barley Corn and Mary came in and when she looked at the Ceiling, then the walls she exclaimed "Dick Chapell what on earth are you doing" he had put side wall paper on the ceiling and ceiling on the side walls. He was quite crosseyed, if he had cried the tears would have run down the back of his neck.

    Ellenor Jane Kubli wife of Kaspar K Kubli very early Ironmonger in his own 2-story brick on so. side of California, adjoining the Redmans brick was an angry person one morning after Haloween the night before on going down the street she spied her top horse buggy on the top corner of the 1-story brick adjoining the Orth business block north end of block from Bruner bldg. now Library

    Henry Orth the butcher for many years made the remark once, they wont get My butcher Wagon on Halloween so the #1 gang got the said gent and were in Bum Neubers Banquet Saloon adjoining Doc Robinsons drug store, while gang #2 proceeded to the slauderhaouse for said Wagon, down we came on 3rd street out California due east to the Wilks Berry farm later Frank Kaiser now Fleming Bros farm, at that time the fields grew hay. There we haulted taking off the wheels and turning them down the hill toward where John Huffer lived but occupied now by a fine elderly lady Mrs. Wakefield who has owned it for years.



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 8 (Ms pages 11, 12)

    Where the Myrtlewood Shop is today, was the Pat Donegan Sr. and Jr. Blacksmith shop after the horse was shod the tin bucket was greased and away young Pat went with the growler, he was a happy young fellow with his leather apron on and a real irishman, captain of the Ball team and won many a game with his good pitching

    where The house adjoining the Auto Wash rack on 238 as you are leaving J'ville no. once lived in a former house Nat Langell a once Justice of the Peace and Peter Elmer a clerk at J.W. Robinsons Drug Store riding a Rambler Bycycle was riding down the sidewalk just as Nat was opening his gate he hit him right in the middle and Pete was in a serious situation but as luck would have it Dr. JW Robinson administered to the stricken man & soon with Mexican Mustang Liniment had his lameness from the strike quite well soothed.

    The original street lights consisted of a post on various corners with a 4 sided glass frame metal top to shed the weather and a metal fount & glass chimney with burner & wick burning coal oil. The City Marshall carried a small stepladder coal oil can to fill the fount He went around every evening to light them & then another trip to blow out the light. One of the old glass cases adorns the corner of the Odd Fellows Hall today electrified. corner Oregon & Main Sts.

    Henry Pape who had a saloon in the corner of the Masonic Bldg. lived in the house on the corner north of the Beekman & Reames Bank, before Geo Love & Wife Fanny with daughter Agnes. They first lived (the Love's) on the southwest corner of Block 17, corner 3rd and c Sts.

Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 9 (MS pages 13,14)

    Its always been a mystery in later years why Thomas G Reames has never been mentioned as a partner of C.C. (Beek) Beekman which he most assuredly was. A. E. Reames who was appointed to fill out the remainder of Senator McNary's term of office was one of the most able attorneys that ever practiced Law His brother Clarence & Charles were also lawyers a daughter and widow lives in Medford today, Mrs. Lucinda Hubbard. The Reames family's large fine home adjoined the Beekman home to the east still stands today

    A.E. (Evan) Reames he always was very familiarly know as had law offices in the Redman's Building, corner of California & 3rd St. Upstairs for many years. After three elections in which it took before the Courthouse was to be established in Medford, the very simple plea it was too far for lawyers to go Evan of course moved there & established his law office in the then Garnett-Corey (?) building and maintained it there until he passed on.


*38. In block 22 to the north of Tom Kenney which was block 17 lived the Teppers and one winter of the 1890s we had quite a severe freshet in old Jackson Creek, it going wild and so much tailings it shifted so many times it went through the Tepper back yard and took his chicken house with all the chickens down the Creek The Owen Keegans (he being Janitor and Circuit Court Crier for years) lived just beyond the Teppers. the said Creek came in their front door and out the back. The place bordered on the north side of the street known as E.

    T.J. (Tom) Kenney was a member of the City Trustees in the late 1800s and was responsible for the building of a break-water from the west end of C st to approximately the north side of F st on the east side of the Creek. a deep trench was dug the entire distance and in the bottom post holes were dug and very long post's were set and then it was boarded up with 2 x 6 planks cottonwood, willows & maples were planted behind to get a root system to hold earth and gravel & that is why the deep open creek bed is there today



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 10 (MS pages 15,16)

    Marion Cardwell & Chris Kenney when kids crossed a plank across old Jackson Creek on D street below the now concrete bridge on North Oregon St. and Bruno the dog (St. Bernard) of Elizabeth T"Vault Kenney family during one of the wild escapade streaks of old Jackson Creek and paddling around here and there, and wet as rats, decided to go home Chris made it OK across the unsteady plank but Marion slipped off and into the raging stream, her long lovely light hair was the portion of her that was grabbed by faithful old Bruno as he leaped into the red stream and brought her safely to the bank where yours truly was crying and almost frightened to death. Well & faithful work by mans best friend.

    Professor Van Scoy was a teacher at the old lap sided 4 Room frame building school house on the natural little mound where the brick building now stands and Charley Ogelsby sit just ahead of Chris Kenney. Chas. had brought two mice from home in a cigar box. After quite a long time I induced Chas to let me see them, promising not to let them loose, but I opened the box& of course out they jumped. How the girls screamed & several Inez Kitchen, Bertha Orme Isa Cook, Bertha Prim all climbed on top of the desks. Prof. Van Scoy came down on the run from his desk on the rostrum and said "get in your seats" his long grey beard flowing and started to drive the mice to the side door, to the corner of the room they run up the wall a bit and the girls screamed. he tried to open the side door but Monk Thrasher had locked it & threw the key out the window. The Prof was white in the face with rage, he tried to find out who did it but all were loyal to me no one knew. He said if I knew who did this Id creek his heels against the ceiling, during the melee the mice got out another door and there was no more bedlam. He was an extremely kind Prof and we should have been thrashed.



Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 11 (MS pages 16, 17, 18)

    We boys Earl Shephered Chas Nunan Otto Foiling Chris Kenney & Dave (Digger) Plymale, were partners in a play store selling drinks vinegar & water with soda added to make it foam, apples grapes peaches & the like and Earl Shepherd was delegated to bring some soda as the supply was exhausted he brought a Pill Box full, all he could get. as his mother would miss it we kidded him called him Pill Box.

    Narcissa Calvin an old maid who lived with the Joe Shepherd family on the corner of Oak & 3rd sts. N.E. corner owned the Seargeant R.S. Dunlap ranch on the old stage Road north out of town in fact inside of the corporate limits of the town around 100 acres and the Late Nan L Kenney then Nan T (?) Lyden had inquired into the possibility of purchasing it but her father did not think to much about it & discouraged her the owner only wanted $2500.00 I contend she had wonderful foresight.

    On the SW corner of 3rd & Main sts once stood a log house with lap siding, built right up to the very edge of the sidewalk It was owned by James H Elliott a retired sailor & former part owner of the Peter Fick Sr. ranch as you leave town going No. on Jacksonville Highway 238 he was an advisor to my father Tom Kenney when he started out in life as a very young man as his father had died. As a Harness & saddle maker. He Elliott took regular summer trips to be for a time at Wagner Soda Springs on Wagner Creek. While gone one summer Father decided to have a house built for him. Having Wash Grimes demolish the cabin and built the center Portion of the one that still stands thereon now Don Wendts

    After concentrating on the subject, where did my Great grand- father have the location for the Table Rock Sentinel in Jacksonville, it has been, through the building that stood and old Court-house records the location was on the corner of California & 4 st (that is so near that corner) The lot on the corner is lot #4 Block 8 south side of California St. Pat Donegan Sr. had the Blacksmith Shop (and Pat Jr) on half




Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 12 (MS pages 18, 19)

of lot 4 east half, and T'Vault had the other half lot 4 (west ½) and that was the Table Rock Sentinel Office, around the middle of the 1850s The T'Vaults, Elizabeth, Sainty & Geo Tyeurgis lived in a log cabin, with stockade around for protection from the Redskins.

    My Grandmother (Chris Kenneys) Elizabeth T'Vault Kenney was taken captive by the indians several times, but was never molested in any way. She could ride a spotted indian pony (Pinto they were called) like the wind bareback, putting her hands on his back & springing to it and she could run off that Jargun just like I murder English. She interpeted for Gen. Joseph Lane many times in his meetings with the indians She tried to teach me, all I ever remembered was Ten as clutchman, & Cladawaw


[1855]

    My Father Tom Kenney was born the 23rd day of December 1955 on the NW corner of Block 26 lot 1, Main & 1st Sts., when six weeks old the indians were driving for an attack on the little town and the men of the town gathered together all women & children which were few children and took them in the Bruner Bldg. Now library with Iron doors and brick walls they were the safest and the men with their muskets kept guard. My grandmother Elizabeth T'Vault Kenney told me many times, don't never let anyone tell you the indians shot flaming arrows for they never did here.


This Bruner Building erected in 1855 never had loop holes for the men to shoot out of.

    The Union Livery Stable located on the east end of block 3, north side Cal. Clear through the block to C St. there- fore northeast 4th & Calif and N.E. 4th & C sts was operated by William Green Kenney during part of the 1880s, and then Geo. Hines, Ples. Bailey, Tucker, Varney, Geo. Lewis.


Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 13 (MS pages 19, 20, 21)

The water used for horses & stock and to wash rigs and harness was a gravity flow from the well on the south side of Block #1 where the old Lyden house stood until 1962 then demolished. It also (this well) was piped to the B.F. Dowell property. The 2-story brick owned by the Wes Hartmens on Fifth St. North. The right for this water was lost years ago as the pipes rusted out & no flow.

    The Redlinger Family, Father & Mother with sons Geo. & Frank lived on the north side of California St. opposite the Thos. G. Reames large Home adjoining the C.C. Beekman home to the west, partner with Beekman then Beekman & Reames Bankers and they had on the east side of their house a cherry tree Royal Ann's very fine eating. One evening at dusk Dick Donegan, Monk Thrasher & the said writer, Chris Kenney decided to partake of some of those mouth watering berries with stems, we heard footsteps approaching not to far around and did we skedaddle, Id say for you fence the other boys out distanced me for some uncalled for reason & I could run but the nearest place of refuge was a deep ditch by the roadside into which I flopped & lo & behold I laid there for an indefinite spell still as a mouse, thinking they would discover me for I was sure they could hear my heart beat, I just know I was scared out of 6 weeks growth. Finally after getting nearly numb with cold I crawled very carefully north and soon was up and galloping back of the the Rawlison barn & toward home. Didnt care about any more Redlinger cherries. My Anna owned this property years after. The old house was burned down.


50 Miles Cantrall (Father of Harlan Cantrall who owned the old Chapell-Devlin ranch on big Applegate west of Ruch left to him by his father.) was a school teacher at the first school on the hill in Jacksonville, School Dist. #1 and the writer Chris Kenney was one of his pupils. Miles had made



Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 14 (MS pages 21, 22)

a rule that there was to be no whispering and he stepped up unbeknowance to me and grabbed me by the back of the coat and shoulders and being quite a husky man deliberately jerked me free of the seat & my long legs swung to the clear then he gave me a deliberate thrust ahead of him down the aisle. My hands & the position one sits down on were full of slivers from that old worn floor and I don't mean maybe. I rather forgot, don't think I told it at home I was mum, sees like I didn't whisper for a spell anyway.

    Geo. Hiller Merritt whose home was with his Aunt Issie McCully & Jane Mason McCully her (Issies) mother, until her passing and Issie lived there for years after, was one of my dearest boy friends, George & I were inseperable, he was great for parties & they were so enjoyable. His Uncle James McCully was a forest ranger in Klamath Co, at Pelican Bay, Owned by E.H. Harriman the Railroad Tycoon. He (Geo) was put on the end of a Whip Cracker line at school and he had a broken wrist - to much cake & cookies.

    J.M. Horton from N.Y. State was Principle at the old lap sided frame school on the hill, where my father Tom Kenney and Mother Rosa Ulrich Kenney, went to school (but during my time at school) I also attended this school & our children attended school on the hill but to the 2nd building which was Brick, The 3rd building still standing was built up from the gutted 1st brick.


Prof. Horton became acquainted with one of the Bells of the town Carrie Cronemiller whose Home was on the property now the Rasmussen Service Station. Courtship finally developed into Marriage. They went to live in the old DeRobam home now owned by Mrs. Janowski "Birdhaven" on East Calif. adjoining the old Convent property owned now by Arthur Backus Horton don the wrong thing, we went to Chivaree him and he slipped out the back door and he & Carry went to Crescent City for a honeymoon. When he came back he had a house to fumigate for the entire house up the stairs & wherenot I



Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 15 (MS pages 22, 23)

don't know was smeared with Limburger Cheese. I loved pranks & various kinds of devilment folks but this I refused to have a hand in and while it was public property all knew it I did not participate.

He taught in the school for a good many years and the school had a university credit for graduating.

    Marie Andrews was a teacher at the Old Jville frame bldg. school during the war with Spain and she had some Spanish blood in her veins we were alway told, a fine looking woman. She put up a Spanish flag on her desk one day & it was not there a minute until it was grabbed & tore to ribbons she had to accept it, everyone was against her and that was around 40 in the room she apologized & that was it. It was the proper course for her to pursue. If she had tried to protest she never could have taught out her term.


Jess, "Monk" Thrasher & I were sent out to the woodshed to get wood and we dug in the wood pile to get some pitch when we brought it she told us to put some in and we did but the pitch sticks it was an airtight, it began to puff & she shut it up tight then it fairly danced on its legs and the girls started for the door, she said Take your seats, they did but there was plenty of smoke in the room and was she angry. She put us in a long closet in an old dark place, it didn't bother us we couldn't study so that helped some.

    John Booth, had a sling shot & shot & Lim Wang a Chinaman at China town west of the city hall wanted to take it & try it he held the forks near his mouth & ask John dis way, yes he of course got the rock in the mouth & did John hit the grit that Oriental I do believe would have hurt him



Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 16 (MS 24, 25)

    Opposite the school grounds was located the Jackson County Road Shops and Jack Thrasher lived adjoining a County road builder. It was during Prohibition days and August Petard who had a vineyard in Rich Gulch made much wine & had many barrels stored in tunnels they had driven in the hill. The authorities confiscated this wine & much of it was dumped in Daisy Creek that flowed by the Thrasher Home. Ida was her given name. She had a number of ducks and of course ducks like water & they were shuffling with their bills her & there and they always drink a lot in on time flat, these ducks became inebriated it was so amusing they tried to walk & quack quacked rolling about similar to a ball. I saw this with my own eyes, never before or since but it was an interesting sight.

    Many a time when a young man have I seen Henry Ankeny owner of the Sterling Mine 9 miles SE of Jacksonville Oregon come to town in a Buckboard drawn by his faithful small bay driving team, he was a heavy gent and had quite a long beard and he carried the cleanup at his hydraulic gold mine and Sold to Beekman & Reames, (C.C. Beekman & Thos G. Reames).

    Henry Ankeny had a daughter Dee who was one of my first school teachers in the 1st lopsided 4 room school on the hill where the brick now stands the 3rd school on the hill and she married John B. Orth a butcher in his fathers Building adjoining the Library (Bruner Bldg) and finally going to Medford and was cashier of the Medford National Bank, now after wrecking the old building and erecting a modern one on the corner of Central & Main, Medford, Ore. The U.S. National Bank, Portland, Ore absorbed the old Medford National Bank a number of years ago.


John G. Orth was a man with Integrity beyond reproach I as a boy raised a good many hogs one at a time as a boy in



s/w Kenney 031
Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 17 (MS 25, 26

our Barnyard Block 17 west across the street (4th) from St. Josephs Catholic Church and sold them to Orth. Very good size one I recall weighed 355#.

Father to increase my savings gave me a note for my earnings and paid me interest on the money so it kept gaining in amount each year.

    A man by name Charles Abbott, (not once owner of the Taylor House) another man from Cripple Creek, Colorado had a dirty fight with Big Yock (E) the town Drunken bully and he got cleaned for good.

    Edward Nunan, son of Pioneer "Jerry" the General Mdse. Store here, rode through town on East California to 5th then on 5th north, until in front of the Jackson County Court House, now Jacksonville Museum, when the cinch of the saddle, loosed and the saddle turned Nunan going under the horse and he got concussion of the brain and lived only a short time.

    Terry Byrnes a boy from the Big Applegate Country south, of the river, once worked for Jerry Nunan in his store and some of the wise acres of the old burg decided to pay a prank on Jerry, he being a green country lad so they gave him a note to Chris Ulrich, who operated a planing mill on 5th & California streets on Daisy Creek, when Chris (by the way he was my Mothers Brother) read the note bottle of strap oil, he grabbed Jerry then a piece of belting that lay on his work bench and threw Jerry across his knee and gave him strap oil to his hearts content. Sometime after they had him holding a gunny sack for hours behind the United States Hotel Feed barn where the Jack- sonville Fire Dept. now stands while the boys were rounding up snipe to fill the sack.




Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 18 (MS 27, 28)

    William Puhl, a barber in the Masonic Bldg. on California St. lived on Oregon St. in the house adjoining Paul Godward's new home, the original residence on that property, burned years ago. He kept a cow at his home and us boys decided one Hallow Eve we'd get Bill Puhl's Cow and take her to the barber shop, after his family were all fast asleep we very carefully got "bossy" and lead her to said shop and after the use of a skeleton key on the lock the way was clear. We had a bit of difficulty in getting "Bossy" in such a queer place but with a bit of "Bran" she was coaxed in her new parlor we all skedaddled, Id say. In the morning when Bill came to the shop and saw what was in front of his eyes he was white with rage. For she had tipped over the barber chair & had newly "painted" the large mirror, floor and what not (a new kind of paint) rather thick, odd odor etc, it was a terrible mess, by all rights we all should have been Black snaked but the gang would not tell on each other so what could be done, NOTHING.

    Roy Ulrich a cousin & I had a good time in his Fathers wheat Bin He ground it for graham flour. By tying our britches legs up & filling them with wheat, it was summer & the wheat was cool.

    Joe Applebaker a Blacksmith had a shop on D & 3rd St. and at one time had quit a lot of harvesting machinery of old worn out or broken parts & he took various pieces of it to work over for use in his shop, so one of the gang on Hallo Eve said lets go get most of that old Machinery at Joe's and pile it in front of the P.Office adjoining the Masonic Bldg. John Miller was Postmaster, we did & when the P.M. saw it in the Morn he was Madder than a wet hen.


Charles Dunford, had a transfer business and he got the job of moving it away to where it properly belonged.


Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 19 (MS 28, 29)

    Chokey McKenzie had a brother Willie and of all the sling shot boys in the town Willie was the best shot. He could hit a robin about every shot. Poor cats, he whacked many a one, just cruel I'd now say.

    Bum (Geo. E. Neuber) owner of the Banquet Saloon, & Marve Taylor Clerk for Jerry Nunan (Gen. Mdse) built a Grand Stand & Bleechers of regulation size west of 5th St. Highway 238 between East 4th St. and between north Est and S.F St. tight board, high, fenced completely around & had many ball games, Foot as well as Base. Pat Donegan (blacksmith) & Henry Orth (butcher) were local pitchers as was Bill McIntyre too.

    Jim Foy, Perc McKenzie, Henry Pope & Gus Pope all worked for Charley McKenzie who was editor of the Democratic Times Published in his own Times Office Bldg. on the corner of 3rd & c streets, 2 small houses occupy that corner west side of 3rd St. & north side of C.

    The property occupied by the Rasmussen Garage & the two residences north of it in the same block, belonged to Dave Cronemiller who was a blacksmith Had a home east of the corner, shop on the corner bordering 4th st. & a barn & various sheds on the cor north side of the property.


The blacksmith shop had at first with Dave the Father of James M, he as a helper until he went into the Grocery business as Dave grew older, Hugh Elliott operated. Then Monroe McKenzie, Charley Basey, Wm. Bishop Jones.

Van Galder & Green mined this property and it has always been properly known that $40,000 was taken in gold from it.



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 20 (MS 29, 30, 31)

    The stone step to the entrance of Fred Luy's shoemaker shop, he done most cobbling is still in place, was there for years the location of this step is to the right of the entrance to the Masonic Bldg. stairs on the sidewalk against the building.

    When I was in my early teens and to keep me out of mischief, (My Grandma said I was the biggest devil she ever saw, but let anyone else say that and she was ready to give a tongue lashing, that would set you in right order) My father gave me some things to do, one in particular was to go after the cow, cows run at large and they usually was twelve to 15 that run together, many people had a cow. The favorite place was Kanaka flat, sometimes Lily Prairie, the flat was about 2 miles up Jackson Creek on the Left side up the sandstone Back bone on High ground and the prairie was several miles up the right hand fork of Jackson Creek. Once the Iowa Lumber Co. had a sawmill there and the Rogue River Valley rail road was extended there to haul the cut lumber out. I would go get my cow, and of course bring the whole herd as it was next to impossible to just bring one.


A trestle broke when the engine of the Rail Road was bringing a load of lumber, and some pipes (steam) broke and Denver Marsle engineer was burned so bad, he passed on.

    Pat Ryon who owned a number of houses and the owner of the 2-story brick, the 2nd one past the U.S. National East on Calif. So. years ago was a great believer of taking sun baths, "stitchless" his favorite spots was a tree on premises of his below the school grounds or on the roof of his then brick building adjoining the hardware store on Calif. St. south side.


Us boys often saw him on a very hot summers day with an


Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 21 (MS 31, 32)

overcoat on carrying a lighted lantern.

We would say Pat what you dressed like that & got a lantern lighted for.

His reply was: Did you ever hear of the man that got rich attending to his own business?

He had plenty of money and was just an old character.

    The Iowa Lumber & Box Co, were people from Council Bluffs Iowa (Hafers & Harts) Clarence & Edgar Hafer. The Perl funeral home in Medford, was built for Edgar Hafer as a home. The I.L. & B.Co. above set their planning mill & Box factory & operated it for several years on the property on west side of North Oregon St. south of the road going to Jacksonville Cemetery. It was moved to Medford later, on the spot where the Big Pines Lumber Co. is today.

    Iowa Lumber & Box Co. had a sawmill to produce lumber for its operation also up Walker Creek, west of Jacksonville and brought the cut lumber down by cars on a long tramway to the foot of the road on a flat by the side of Walker Creek to the then Fletcher Linn Ranch.


Bert Thierolf's son is Owner of Big Pines Lumber Co. today. His father came to the valley with the L.B. & B.Co's other employees. Charley Bonham & Shorty Cutler and worked in various capacities for said Co. Wes Green, Corlisse's, John Lyden of old Lyden House was a saw filer & Mill Right there also a Mr. Jones who Built on the Lyden House for Lyden. Lyden bought the corner property cor Oregon & California now vacant from Tom Kahler, Bro of Wes Kahler a lawyer for the Chinese that mined on Little Applegate.

s/w 036

Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 22 (MS 32, 33)

The Wes Kahler law office a brick was owned by the late Nan L. Kenney & sold to Murial Pointer Enselman. It is owned today by Robertson Collins of Mt. Pitt Lumber Co. Central Point, Ore.

73 Rev Robert Ennis Presbyterian Preacher was a very well liked man in the town and worked at his two small places above town, in fact up Jackson Creek to the west He had grapes and peaches of good quality 6 days and preached the gospel on Sunday.

74 A German surveyor & a good one, right to the scratch in his profession, was in the criterion, saloon cor, Calif & Oregon, talking over a glass a beer with Cap Booz & Sergeant R.S. Dunlap, Kap Caton, bartender & owner during the War with Spain and words come up about the conflict. (The Surveyors name was Elksnab) (Elksnab made a remark that the Spaniards would whip the Yanks. Caton & Dunlap were old Civil War veterans. Caton said Elksnab refrain from such remarks or we will string you up to a limb of the big maple tree in back of the saloon. The German had other things to talk about from then on.

    When I was a boy an old warty faced negro lived a short distance up Rich Gulch from where the 1st gold was found and he sawed wood for people with a bucksaw, a happy go lucky real smoky old gent, his living apartment was very far from meeting sanitary requirements of the present century.

    Harry Foster & Alva Gunnell, representing the North Western Mines Corp. had a long lease on the J.W. Opp Property, belonging to J.H. Huffer & C.C. Beekman before and they had a force of men working at the mine and at the quartz




Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 23 (MS 33, 34, 35)

mills, and afterwards taken over by the Strayliarn interests.

    Railroad builders, who built the R.R. down the Deschutes river for Jim Hill, to buck S.P. R.Road.

    Nye & Crouch operated a Cyanide plant to treat ore from the J.W. Opp mine.

    Harry Foster, of Foster & Gunnell married a well known Jacksonville Girl Jessie Longell, daughter of Nat Longell once Justice of the Pease, with office in the wooden building adjoining the Westfall 2nd store on north side of California St.

    A.E. (Evan) Reames who was a son of Thos. G. Reames, partner of C.C. Beekman and who was named to take the place of Senator McNary of Oregon when he passed on, was a very prominent lawyer and one of the best in Jackson Co. took a suit for me collecting a wage claim. Bob Smith from Grants Pass a shrewd attorney was the opposing council and during my place on the stand for testimony, Smith asked me about a metal cash box, I replied in a huff "none of your dam business" what a roar in the Court Room. Now the Jacksonville Museum. Evan after winning the case, gave me Hail Columbia, which I deserved. He said it was a difficult case & I had no business getting angry.

    Judge Silas J Day had an abstract office for years in a small building on the corner of the block where the Jane Mason McCully Colonial House (Doll House now 1966) and at the west end of Calif St. across from the scotch Broom on Britt Hill. He was coming home one bright moonlight eve with a lighted lantern, long cape and herd voices and

Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 24 (MS 35, 36)

stopped. My darling Anna & I had taken a walk & sat down in the moonlight to enjoy it. He said, is that somebody up there, I replied yes Judge its Chris Kenney & wife, enjoying the lovely evening. Alright he said and on he went.

    Gus Newbury, a very shrewd criminal lawyer, had an office (when he first started as an attorney after teaching in Jacksonville school, First building on the Mound, lap sided 4 Room Bldg. the Jackson Co School Supt.), on the west side of the McCully property would be now against the now U.S. Post Office. It was a small building that matched the Judge Day one. As the saying goes, he was a self made man, Had a son who became a lawyer & was a very promising man in the profession, was found dead on the slope of Roxy Ann a few years ago in a car. It seemed to be a mystery and was never solved.

    John Margreiter a German who was a very thrifty man with integrity beyond reproach, cut & delivered wood to different people in town, had an ordinary buckskin Poke and he could always roll out of it a twenty dollar gold piece.


I said to him one day at our store after Id sold him some moldy cheese he wanted me to save it for him. John you must have an old rusty can full of that gold, Ah--CHRIS as he drew out my name I always got the cash. He would dump the cheese in his pocket & go in Kap Catons saloon to get a glass of beer and then break off a piece of moldy cheese & never look eat it right down.

I can say with all truthfulness if a lot of us would eat a bit of that very mold, we would never have stomach trouble. Dr. James C. Hayes once said this, but named Roquefort Cheese.
Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 25 (MS 36, 37)

    My Darling Anna told me many a time of her mother getting mold from a jar of fruit or jelly (all of us has seen that) and binding it on a wound to heal it and thats where penicillin comes from. Many a home remedy was excellent. Her dear mother enjoyed just like her own dear self to help others. It was part of her life.

    John Pernoll, P.M. at Applegate PO was General Mdse Store for years was nabbed & shot, which ended his long, faithful and active career. He had integrity beyond reproach and I had a very fine lifelong friend in John.


One instance I recall very vividly, I had been selling Wearever Aluminum traveling about a portion of Jackson Co by horse & buggy in 1919. I had sold a lady on Thompson Creek a sett and had a lot of people pay me when I sold and I would send it to them by Parcel Post, paid or Collect which ever the case may be. I had sold quite a number of orders and discovered I had made a mistake and sent her order COD instead of paid. I hit the telephone and called Pernoll and told him about it. He said oh yes Chris she has been here & told me of the crooked deal but I tried to tell her you had made a mistake but she did not listen. John sent it up to her by a friend and I settled with John.

I went on my next trip to her home to explain but there was no use, she only abused me & I left, regretting the happening.


Babe the heavy black horse we owned was a very faithful and kind animal we bought her as a young horse from Joe Ginet up Goose Hollow Sterling Creek.


Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 26 (MS 38, 39)

    A thought prompts me to recall an extended list of men who sunk and drifted in every vacant lot & back yard to mine of the precious metal, Gold during the 1930s



 
    Frank Taylor
        Paul Winningham
 

 
    Terry Keen
        Harry Whitney
 

 
    Frank Gustis
        Elmer Adams
 

 
    Dave Winningham
        Carl Thiede
 

 
    Joe McIntyre
        Henry Wilkinson
 

 
    Andrey Handy
        Abe Enyart
 

 
    Claud Perry
        Slim Mirror
 

 
    Van Galder & Green
        Clyde "Blacky" Wilson
 

 
    Henry "Hank" Wilkinson
        John Renault
 

 
    Fred Christean
        Wm Dobbyns
 

 
    Art Johnson
        Bill Jones
 



    Fred Christean & Wm. "Bill" Dobbyn had a floating dredge and mined the creek bed from the bridge on No Oregon St. to Elmer Adams property line this side of the bridge on West California St. Jacksonville-Ruch Hi Way 238.

    A few years after the turn of the century Anna I. Lyden sought to teach school and was chosen to teach the Apple-gate school. She had a room at the Benedict home, which burned years after. Every week end a young fellow by the name of Chris Kenney, who was seeking the affections of said teacher was Johny on the spot with a rubber tired buggy and Bay Horse "Frank" for her transportation to her home in Jacksonville. This said Bay Horse, drawing this stick seat rubber tired buggy, shipped from the Elkhart Carriage Co., Elkhart Indiana, was a fancy rig and we made many happy trips to various places in Jackson County with-in 20 to 25 miles. Picnics to Rogue River (River not Town) (the former name was Woodville, now Rogue River.) was a very favorite spot, when a hot day was on.




Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 27 (MS 39, 40)

    The upper Peter Britt ditch was a very popular place for young couples to spend a few hours in each others company. It was shaded by trees of various kinds, grown in old Mother Natures Woods. Peter Britt would not allow any wood to be taken from his lands. Scotch broom grew from his planting and covered quite a space of ground on the north slope on Jackson Creek side above the Brewery to the west.

    On Hi-Way 238 Jacksonville, about one mile north of town lived a man, F.E. "Polly" or Frank Bybee and he made his trips to town with horse & Buggy a hitching rack held the space on the so. side of the Bruner Building (now library) and Polly tied his horse there, while dropping in, his favorite saloon to wet his whistle or take on a bit of gambling and then a visit to Jerry Nunan's General Store. While he was gone one very fine day, two young ladies sisters by Name Nan Lyden and Hellen A. Lyden saw "Polly's" rig there and untied the horse & proceeded to take a ride. Polly looked all over and had the City Marshall looking to, but in the mean time they come back & tied the horse and no one ever did know who had the rig until the girls told him one day for they were all acquainted, and Polly had to set up Ice Cream & Candy at the Reese Chapman confectionery in the Masonic Corner.

    Joe Rader a very popular Sheriff around the turn of the Century when the County Seat was in Jacksonville & the small Brick (red) Jail was still in use, these two ladies mentioned above wanted to see the inside of the little Jail, Joe took them in and as a joke decided to try to shut them in, he did and their dismay kept them in for over an hour, when he released them they weren't angry but he got a real pummeling. He was a tall big man and no real harm was done. When Joe talked one word piled upon the other, he was such a fast talker.


Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 28 (MS 41, 42)

    Well do I remember looking out our front window in the house that burned in block 17 across, west from St. Josephs Catholic Church, when a fire at the Red Brick Jail, was fatal for three mens lives, they were suffocated and laid out on the lawn until the Undertaker came. It was about the middle of the 1890s.

    Dexter Patterson, his father was sheriff & I went to school in the old frame lap sided school, and he got out just ahead of me and down the hill we run hard as we could trying to beat the other to the style, entrance to the school yard. I really remember how hard we breathed after the run.

    Wilbur Jones, that married Gus Newbury's former 1st wife Nellie Rose Newbury had the shivaree gave after him and we put a pair of chaps on him & then set him astride a Burrow for the ride down town for a round of the drinking emporiums, everything in the way of making noise was in use. Wilbur was a good sport, he wasn't a drinker but behind the bar did he get & served a 2nd Bartender. The Burrow he rode was taken right in the saloons & I saw with my own eyes that animal drink beer, of course you held the glass.

    Geo. "Rock" McCune was one of the boys about town, living with his mother & stepfather O. Bowman a carpenter on So. 3rd St, he worked as a clerk in the Grocery & Dry Goods store on north side of Calif. St. adjoining the Sacks Brick Bldg. owned & operated by James M. Cronemiller, another man with integrity beyond reproach. Rock, unfortunate fellow was out one Sunday with a livery rig & had been lit up with a concoction of John Barley Corn & Rogue River Rot Gut and handled the lines of the trusty steeds rather roughly the rig turning over & running over him, he only lived a few days.

Memoirs of Chris Kenney Page 29 (MS 42, 43)

    Peter Bushey a civil War Veteran lived in block 17 just north of the now City Fire Hall on North 3rd St. The old soldiers & Sailors had a Reunion & encampment in the Chris Ulrich park on S.3rd St. and Bushey with other Vets decided to bring our old Brass Cannon into use in the old town. Powder was wanted so Tom Johnson, Clerk at the Tom Kenney Hardware & Grocery store was contacted at his sleeping quarters in the City Brewery of Veit Schutz & all the Kentucky Rifle powder in 1&½# cans was bought Richard Donegan Clerk at Jerry Nunan's and workman's socks were bought there then the powder was put in the old brass field piece & then wet socks ramming it down until the rod jumped out of the muzzle and it was pointed first, in the curb in front of the Banquet Saloon where many men were drinking and it would have been a means of quite a loss of life, but the Vets were persuaded to move it to the intersection of Calif & 3rd sts over a fire cistern a fire was built on side of the St. and a rod heated to ignite the loose powder on rear end of the cannon and what a jump the old field piece did make and the roar it did cause, the concussion was so great down north 3rd St. that nearly every window pane in the US Hotel was shattered, & even some of the window frames were splintered. Geo. "Bum" Neuber owner of the Banquet Saloon footed the bill to replace the glass & frames in the Hotel, he also paid for those broken in "Beek's" C.C. Beekman's Bank.

    T J Kenney's Hardware & Grocery Store on W. California St., was bought from David Linn about 1889, David Linn had a furniture store there, T.J. "Tom" Kenney had a Saddlery & Harness shop and, 2nd Hand store, finally drifting into Hardware & gro. His first Harness business was in the west half of the frame building adjoining the brick to the east side. He dispatched many teams loaded with various merchandise to the Blue Ledge Mine, 5 miles above Copper Calif, the owner who was Robert H. Towne of New York City,


Memoirs of Chris J. Kenny Page 30 (MS 45,46)

rated at $70 Million in Bradstreet Franklin P Safford,
Accountant, Andrew Bridgerman Asst. Elliott Turnbull,
Mdse Receiver Marion Hilkes, assayer, Geo. von der Hellen asst., a store & a bar to wet your whistle, was operating a short distance this side of the mine called Eilsen. Gasoline was shipped in carload lots, in 5-gal. cans for fuel for gasoline engines, to produce the power for the air compressor, used to operate the drills. The reason for gasoline in 5-gal. cans, was to pack it on pack animals, 5 miles up the mountain, later a road was built. Three hundred fifty-five men worked there at one time. John Collins the diamond drill operator run the diamond drill for 2½ years. Dave & Fred Dorn assisted in this work. We, Tom Kenney & son Chris handled the gasoline in the now Jacksonville library bldg. and at one time had stored overnight a car load of dynamite, going out by teams the next day. It was illegal but happened.

    "A Blue Ledge Copper Mine Adventure" year 1906.


I (Chris Kenney) was invited by the mine management, F. W. Carnahan, a splendid gentleman, loved by all who worked there), to a vacation at the mine and was I feted, I'd say. I had my favorite horse "Frank," a bay there & rode him many miles through the hills thereabouts. I was under the impression the horse could go wherever I could and one day I got off his back & walked, trying to lead him up a steep place & he lost his footing & down the hill he went over two or 3 times, I was greatly afraid the old fellow was hurt but only scratched a bit, He was standing on a ledge overlooking a sheer drop. Poor boy was trembling & I patted him and stroked his nose & said it's o.k. Frank Ill get you out close by was Henry Callahan's tunnel, what he called The St. Albins Group. These mines were copper. I found an old ax there & cut steps in the

Memoirs of Chris J. Kenny Page 31 (MS 46, 47)

earth & led the noble old steed out & he brightened right up & snorted aloud, as much as to say Chris I do appreciate your kindness. It was a very warm day in August & did I perspire Id say and how. I found out a horse can not go where a man can, the hard way.

    "Jack," a Russian wolf hound owned by Walter Parsons, mine surveyor, was brought out to town many times, but he made it back in quick order and it did not take long he was boss of all dogs there about. One day a stray dog appeared & was as Jack thought claiming to much territory for a stranger & picked on a pal of his and Jack grabbed that gent by the back of the neck & threw him across the road, poor stranger hit for other parts & did not return again.


101

The mine office Force Turnbull, Safford and Bridgeman I called the graduated 3, as they tapered from Bridgeman up to Turnbull who was 6'2" tall.

102 Many a time when a small boy have I went down one side of California St. with a hand bell ringing and then calling Meeting tonight at the city hall, every one come, then back up the other side my pay was Fifty Cents and that was big pay then (Chris Kenney)

103 I have at my home (Chris Kenney) a bell just like the one I spoke of in the article (102) I really prize, this bell, for it was used at the Famous "Lyden House" by the Mother & Father of the Rose of my life Anna Lyden Kenney. to let the public know meals were ready.



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenny Page 32 (MS 48, 49)

104 Wm Cook, Father of Isa Mary Alice "Bug" Cook, Luy was called "Whistling Bill" for well do I remember his clear sharp whistling. Isa's daughter Ruth had a dancing academy in Medford for many years.

105 James Drum operated a grocery store on California st. & I went in one day to get some gum little squares image of a grid a good bit like I have drawn and I gave him a ten cent piece and he was rather near sighted and gave me a sun burnt nickel in change. I said Jimmie this aint a nickel. It was a 5.00 gold piece, Here Chrissie he always called me, another piece square of gum, for being an Honest boy. His head had not a hair on it, it was just like a billiard ball.

106 When living on the 4K Ranch our little homestead on Yale Creek, Sec 10 - Twp 40, R2W W.M., we walked down to the Combest place, a mile to the north of our place Fred & His mother "Melissa" were there and we visited, and all at once a 30-30 Carbine barked right in the house and Fred had seen a mouse on the Flour barrel. It was mince-meat for he had hit it center.

I saw him one time shoot the ashes off a cigarette in his brother Tina's mouth.

107 Poor Leona Ulrich Hanna was so afraid of snakes, once at school I flashed a paper snake by the side of her and she almost went into hysteria, she was a lovely woman.

108 G.E. "Bum" Neuber had a driving team of "Roans" and they were well kept and could travel like the wind, a man by the name of Tindall a mind reader, took this team once with Gennie Reames Thos. G. Reames daughter partner of


Memoirs of Chirs J. Kenny Page 33 (MS 49, 50)

C.C. Beekman and he was blindfolded and he drove the team around 2 blocks & fast too making all turns just as Bum had to hide a ruler under some shingles in the Priests Fathers Waltery wood shed & came up with the ruler she Gennie Reames had hold of one of his hands. The horses names were Mollie & Carrie, after Mollie Miller & Carrie Cronemiller. They were very popular girls of the Town.

109 Molly Britt baked many a pie in the Lyden House kitchen for they always had a fire there. One day Mollie came down the hill & said Oh Nan, Nan Lyden, the The late Anna Lyden Kenney do come up to my house & hear our Victorola. They had just bought one and had a big assortment of records. Nan & her were very close friends.

110 John Dyer was another Marshall in old town, had a daughter, Carry by name a very fine looking girl he like all the former Marshall's carried the loader & coal oil can & light- ted up the City and put them out at daylight, they almost broke the darkness.

111 Raphael Morat, lived on 5th St. where the Carnival that came to town held forth, He & wife raised a boy Walt Williams, a waif taken in he was a lightweight man & turned out to be a Jockey.

Joe McDaniel, half brother to Isa Luy was, also a Jockey like the man Williams in #111.

112 Donald Lyden Kenney we lost with a heart attack in 1957 once had a Ford Bug and he & Orval Goodman, were going to Medford and almost forgot to turn the corner at Bybee Corner, the bug turned over three times & then alighted



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenny Page 34 (MS 50, 51, 52)

on the wheels. Orval was dumped out & lost most of his front teeth on the pavement but Don being back of the wheel had the good luck of staying in the bug.

    James H. "Jimmie" Wilson was a tinsmith and worked in Maegley's shop in the rear of the Brick on north side of Calif. St. adjoining the Sacks Bldg., he was the grandfather of Grace Clark, wife of architect Clark for years in Medford. Jimmies wife was a sister to Eleanor Jane Kubli, wife of K. K. Kubli Sr. of the Kubli Hardware on the so. side of California adjoining the Jacksonville Club.

    Sid Nichols had a grocery in the east half of the Pat Ryan brick 2-story adjoining the Gunsmith Miller Bldg. all on so. side of California St.

    Where the Cracker Barrel Studio is today, Masonic Bldg. Cor Oregon & Calif. Sts., Roy Ulrich had a Confectionary then and water from his fathers wooded tract of land, South 3rd st just after crossing the 2nd bridge was piped to the fountain, from a lovely spring there.

    Peter Applegate when Jackson Co. Recorder before the merging of Clerk & Recorder at the Courthouse in Jacksonville owned and lived in the Sam Phillips Brick House on South 3rd St. now the Nobles. His boys sunk & drifted, mining there and there was an abundance of water. He had a 10000 gal. redwood tank placed on the hillside across 3rd St. East and had quite a good many customers furnished with water, before Jacksonville had a water system, by dam west on Jackson Creek.



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenny
117.
118.
119.
120.
Page 35
(MS 52, 53)
Irwin "Boliver," "Sprekels long leggs," Eccelson, married Effie Bybee Prims daughter Bertha, John F. Miller whose home was where Art Davies now lives, married her, Bertha Prim sister Mable she passed on at the birth of their son John Jr.
C.W. Conklin operated a undertaking parlor in the Orth Bld for the Medford Hdwe & Fur Co, living in the E.C. Brooks home, corner 1st & Main, now owned by Wm Dobbyn, was overcome by embalming fluid, and his life was saved by the late Anna Lyde Kenney reviving him by smelling Salts, which she rushed to him.
Ed H. Helems who operated the Table Rock Saloon after his father Herman died really run a good place. If a person butted up to the bar and was, a bit out of personal controll, he told him, you can't buy any liquor here, his money was no good. He was big enough to back up his word, If there was any altercation, he just put the man out.
John Winchen was a partner at Herman Hellms, of the Table Rock Saloon.
121.
It was quite amusing to see Wm Bybee Sr. stop at the corner of Oregon and Calif. sts. when Kap Caton had the saloon there to wash his false teeth in the horse trough at the pump on that corner.
His home was about 1 mile out the north stage road, a home very similar to the McCully House on the corner of Calif. & 5th St. now the Doll House.
122.
W.C. Sparks a shoemaker had a shop on S.Oregon St. across from the Fire Hall on S.Oregon St. and had to make him. special shoes for he had no heels as he was from Nebrasks

Memoirs of Chris J. Kenny Page 36 (MS 53, 54)

& had had them frozen off. He was a fine man but had a queer walk from this trouble.


Oscar ("Ike") Dunford was in a local restaurant one day & decided to get a cookie or two, in a big barrel they were kept and as he was stooped over both arms down in the barrel, two of the waitresses saw a chance. They grabbed his legs and he was helpless & used a hot cake turner very effectively on his bottom.

    With the old Hand side pumper of Jacksonville Engine Co. #1 now on display at the Jacksonville Museum many a time did I (Chris Kenney) help with suction hose on it at one end & fire Hose on the other pumping from the cistern in the intersection of Calif & 3rd St. throw a stream over the flag pole on the United States Hotel.

    Judge Wm Colvig had a daughter Hellen who dressed as Martha Washington and the writer Chris Kenney dressed as Geo Washington at a masked Ball in the old Jacksonville Court House now Museum in the 1890s and won 1st prize a sunburnt Ten. (gold cow)

    W.I. McIntyre, Russel McIntyres Grandfather loved to play 1966 Base Ball, and after working in the mines all week for Mar 1 Ol Sturgis on Jackass Creek he would come in to town and catch for the ball team Sundays, playing in the Regulation Ball Park of Neuber and Taylor where the Super Market now stands.

    The old stage (Calif-Ore) barn occupied the property on 1966 corner of S. 4th & Pine Street Mar 1




Memoirs of Chris J. Kenny Page 37 (MS 54, 55, 56)

    A dentist by name Caldwell had an office in the Old Taylor House in the 1890s Cor 4th & Calif St. So.

    Chris Keegan & Harry Luy operated a Saloon (Reception by name) after the turn of the Century a few years in the Brick building next to the corner So. side on Cal. & 3rd Sts.

    Geo. Hilton a Marshall of the town, 1930s was asked by a tourist, while seated on a bench in front of D.H's dump loaded to the gills a direction & he just turned his head in the direction he guesses. He knew not if he was a foot or Horseback, Fortified had sway.

    Oliver Harbaugh lived in a two-story House on the north side of academy St. across from the School House and when he was 91 years old, he came up town in the middle of the winter without a coat on & stepped along like a young bird as light footed as you please to get to a place of refresh-ment & there were ½ doz of them to get the 1st Cyrus Noble, it was free and Ive heard him say, yes By God Chrissie (he always called me) Ive drank 40 barrels of Whiskey in my lifetime I never saw him inebriated, he was just pickled.

    Pat Swayne a browny tall Irishman farmer from Big Apple-gate, was like a big bear, when he shook hands he almost lifted the ordinary individual off his feet and woe to your fingers.

    Lucerne Rolison a schoolmate in hi school with curly hair, sort of ladies' man, he always was so straight the general opinion was he wore a corset.



Memoirs of Chris J. Keeney Page 38 (MS 56, 57)

    Sam Clemmens a man who lived next to Henry Klippel, Now Joe McIntyre in the Klippell addition to Jville east side of town on 8th St. was a man so pidgeon-toed they were almost inverted.

    Edythe Priest a young woman the Oliver Harboughs raised went to Africa as a missionary and have never knew whether she ever come back. She attended school here.

    Hi Allison had a lime kiln at the junction of Miller Gulch & Jville Ruch HiWay 238 in the 1890s.

    John F. Miller Jr. 1st had a sister, Tillie Her husband was Dr. J.W. Robinson and his other sister Mollie was a wife of K. K. Kubli Jr, Ellenor Jane Kubli's son a great baseball player, catcher who took the ball before it got to the batter when that was permissable.


I saw him drive a ball over the center field fence, regulation field in Jacksonville.

    Philip Miller brother to John F. Miller Jr. 1st committed suicide at the Miller Ranch on Miller gulch off 238 a few miles west of Jacksonville. They had a hydraulic mine there. He leaped off a high bank on the rocks below, had concussion of the brain.

    J.W. Wilkinson's father Edward owned & operated a butcher 1966 shop on the northside of Main St., between Central & Mar 4 next st east Swems gift & book store has operated there since for years, His mother was Flora Orth John W was born in the north room of the John Orth, 2-story brick built in the year 1868 on the corner of Main & 3rd sts.


Memoirs of Chris J. Keeney Page 39 (MS 57, 58)

The late Nan L. Kenney bought this brick house in the early 1940s from Russel Guillion, she owned at one time all the balance of the block (27), but 50x100, which belonged to W.S. Sparks & Sister Margaret Fields.

    We Kenneys, Nan, Donald, Fosma & I (Chris Kenney) lived on 35 acres of land, filed on as a Homestead in 1914, and proved up with a Patent, signed by Pres. Wilson. Our transportation at first was a white mule, Becky with a small one animal wagon. The distance to Jacksonville, was 20 miles and we made it in 7 hours so there was no speeding.


We raised red & white beans Potatoes, yellow dent corn, rutabagas, onions, carrots cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins & alfalfa, so that was quit a bit of our living. We had a ditch about 1½ miles long and therefore plenty of water for irrigating.

Yale Creek ran through the place and fishing was usually good, wood Pheasant and an occasional grey squirrel were cooked to a q.t. by an excellent cook, the rose of my life Anna. She could use a 30-30 Carbine and several mavricks were brought down, by her with that firearm.

The medium sized white bean we grew, there was no trouble to sell what we did not need for our own use, as being grown at the altitude there, namely 2640 ft, they were quick cookers, we had a few red and black hogs, therefore our own Pork. And what I mean my darling could cure hams & bacon, with brown sugar rubbed in the meat.

Did she know how to make bread no Chinamans dream either. One thing I nearly overlooked was chickens & we had a nice



Memoirs of Chris J. Keeney Page 40 (MS 58, 59, 60)

flock, a sow, we called short had a litter of 11 pigs once, but we had to butcher her for she got to picking up baby chicks & eating them like chocolate drops..

141 Had a 12 Ga. full choke Winchester pump Shotgun I put some buckshot shells in and Don & I walked up to the lick one summer day to possibly get a deer, as we were walking through a thicket of laurels, and excellent place to see one, a blue jay, let a series of squacks, really & truly, a warning to a deer I let him have it and all you could see was feathers, the boy was so amused & laughed so hard he having only bib overalls and barefeet just rolled on the ground and said, Dad, you hit him center. Don had a black shepherd Dog, Dick & they went fishing together and what I mean he caught trout too.

Many a time he said to his dear mother, wait now & Ill get you some fish for your breadfast & he did.

His sister Fosma, had patience just like her darling mother, would go pick wild strawberries and quite a lot too.

We had a big chicken house and shut them up at nights, as there were coyotes there, mother would say go shut the chickens & he said I'm afraid, Fosma would say oh come on coward nothing would hurt you, off they went together.

    In the late 1890s, Father, Tom Kenney bought a lot of turkeys, & slaughtered them & dressed, shipping to San Francisco for the holiday trade.


We had a large wagon shed adjoining the hay & horse barn & had 15 men picking turkeys. One instance I remember during this picking. The turkeys were hung by the feet & then cut in the mouth to bleed well then dry picked. One local man Frank Plymale had a bird that seemed to have a lot of life left when practically all plucked, & he sat him down & he started to walk off therefore he



Memoirs of Chris J. Keeney Page 41 (MS 60, 61)

had to be hung & further bled.

    Father dwelt in Furs, hides & Pelts and had a room on the main floor of the Masonic Bldg. in Jacksonville on Oregon St., rented, where their kitchen now is and Ive seen it full to the ceiling with Hides & etc as of above.

    Our (The Kenney) Homestead, we called the 4 ranch, Don, Fosma, Nan & Chris and one day Nan & I took the shotgun loaded with #1 Buck shot & took a stroll up to the deer lick & there stood a 6 pt buck, I was quite a ways off but pumped a shot broadside at him. Down he went but up & off we looked & looked and I remarked guess I didn't get him, Nan said, lets look I'm sure you killed him. He was so fat the small holes the shot made it closed up. My honey waited & I went back to the ranch & brought our faithful black Horse Babe & we loaded it on the saddle with her not one bit frightened & when there I hung it from a cross log of the Wagon part of the Barn to skin & dress.


The chickens got the head & the hogs cared for offalls.

    A sheriff of Jackson County once at at our table when we had fried maverick.


Guy Lawton once a deputy Game Warden I knew well, was up to the ranch pretending to be prospecting. I said Hell, Guy, miners don't prospect in the winter. If you can find any maverick, hop to it, we had some but I knew he could never find it. I had it hung up a tree in the gulch.

    The first plane that ever flew over the ranch, frightened the horse Babe so she stood stiff legged & her tail straight back, chickens coming about our feet.




Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 42 (Ms 62, 63)

    Tom DeVore had a second hand store in the Orth bldg. in the 1916's.

    Geo. E. Neuber had a acetylene Gas plant in a sawdust filled walls building in the alley behind his Banquet Saloon, which adjoins the Sacks Bldg. and J W Robinson Bldg. on north side of Calif St, which supplied lights for his saloon & for Tom Kenneys Hardware & Grocery Store, cor, Calif & Oregon. in the 1890s.

    A. E. "Evan" Reames had the corrugated iron bldg. on the alley & so. side of C St. built to house a gasoline gas plant which supplied quite a good many with gas for illuminating residences as well as business establishments in the 1890s. The generating apparatus was in a basement of the bldg.

    The T J "Tom" Kenney home he had built on the west side of 3rd St. (North) (from St. Josephs Catholic Church) by Art Nicholson architect Fred Weeks, Medford, The contract price was $1320.00 the year 1898 5 bedroom house Geo Priddy laid the Hard brick foundation. My bedroom was the N. W. room, 2nd floor.


151 Mason Laughfman who lived on Bellinger Lane a big part of the farm, now Memory Gardens, sit by (our) T J Kenney store stove swapping stories many a day. He was a real man.

    The Favorite spot to dump confiscated wine and liquor during Prohibition was a city cistern 15' in diameter and 15' deep, concreted, which was located in the N W corner of the Court House Block now Museum block, Jacksonville. a lot of choice liquor was however dumped down the alimentary canal of county officials & their friends.




Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 43 (Ms 63, 64)

    John Herberger lived at the west end of Oak street and built an addition to the first Tom Kenney Home on 3rd st west side Block 17 now burned down owned last by the late Anna L Kenney and while building he never drank water, but always had his rattan demijohn with sour wine, cashed under the Barrel Stove Hammock in the front yard.

    The C H Reeds lived west of Jacksonville at the forks of Jackson Creek, right, but owned land on the south side of the right fork, up as far as Kanaka Flat and he had a Today grape vineyard. Many a time have I went for a basket for 25¢ bunches as big as a ½ gal. bucket 2¢ per pound.

    What lemon pies the rose of my life could make, deep pan with beaten whites of eggs, lovely light brown color atop, never again after 58 years together.

    A man once was an inmate of the little red brick jail in the court yard during prohibition days, do know his name, anyway Ill give the 1st or given name "Isaac" and it was a known fact he was in for making moonshine and he also made it in the jail. I'm not Ripley, but its true.

    One Halloween, the boys decided to use a bit of soft soap on the tracks of the Jerk Water (Rogue River Valley Ry. Co) down by the school yards, and I can hear to this day the snorting & puffing, with the engine wheels, so hot from friction on the sand let down for traction till there was no use it just could not make one bit of headway. The train crew had to use gunny sacks to wipe that soft soap of the tracks for 50 yards the smearing was done in a lasting way. Mr. W. S. Barnum was an angry Gent. He burned fir wood in the engine and at another Halloween night a fence was built about the tracks of



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 44 (Ms 64, 65, 66)

of the 2 ft wood, he had the supply of wood piled on each side of the tracks by the school grounds.

    Gus Newbury (lawyer) came down town one morning and discovered his law office was located in a different spot a privy was setting in the intersection of 3rd & Calif sts. with his sign thereon.

    My grandfather Daniel Moe Kenney son of John Kenney of New Orleans Louisiana, was born in New Orleans March 9, 1822, from a family record traced by our daughter, Mrs. J. S. Rood of Brooks Brook, mile 830 Youkon Territory Canada 1966, father John Kenney she was unable to trace the year he came to Jacksonville but he was here a time and then departed for Oakland Calif. where he remarried and spent the remainder of his days living there, and attained the ripe old age of four score years, my grandfather Daniel Moe Kenney, established the first general merchandise & grocery store in a clapboard building on the corner of California & Oregon Sts., where the brick drug store is today in the year 1855 and I wish to refute a statement made in a gold rush pamphlet the rumor they had an abundance of whiskey for sale, and I remember it very vividly. My grandmother Elizabeth T'Vault Kenney, telling me that they never sold whiskey.

    In the Col. Wm. Green T'Vault family was Geo. Lycurgus, Sainty, Elizabeth always called "Lizzie." 

    Elizabeth T'Vault Kenney, had two sons Thomas, J. and William Green & one daughter Roda who was married to Dan Cardwell.

    I just spoke of Roda Kenney, daughter of Elizabeth T'Vault Kenney marrying Dan Cardwell. The Cardwell home was 7½ acres east & adjoining the Jacksonville brick school on the hill and the now Heuner's ranch on



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 45 (ms 66, 67)

the east side of Jacksonville, Heuners Lane the road leading to it was named from the last owners of this farm. a son of the Cardwells, William was a very prominent lawyer in Roseburg until passing on. He had on the side as a hobby a very noted race horse, "King Kohr" by name and a fine prune orchard.

    Eleanor Jane Kubli, a resident of Jacksonville, together with her Husband Kaspar K. Kubli, a hardware merchant owning his own building the Kubli Bldg. on California St, had a daughter who married C. B. Watson a very prominent att.y in Portland until passing. One daughter Valeen married Phil Meachem Metschan, owner of the Imperial Hotel of Portland, Ore The C. B. Watsons sons James was like the father a lawyer & became a partner of William Cardwell of Roseburg, Ore.

    Do not believe I have mentioned it before but my great-great-grandfather Col. W. G. T'Vault from a tracing of our daughter in memo 159 emigrated from France in the year 1818, landing in New Orleans.

    T'Vault was born on the high seas and my grandmother told me many times it was a man's privilege if born as said to name his own country, therefore by landing in this country he took the grand old USA as the land of his birth. Many incidents that have happened in old Jacksonville, was related to me by my very dear old Grandmother Elizabeth T'Vault Kenney when I was in my 'teens but I did not realize the fact. if I had only jotted down in a diary a lot, they would have been very valuable to posterity.

    She was taken captive several times by the Indians, but never molested possibly to some extent that she could run off their jargon just like I murder English.

    "Granny," I always called her, loved our children Fosma and Donald; she was in the heights of her glory when she had one on each knee, toddling them up and down.



Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 46 (ms 67, 68, 69)

    One of her sons W. G. "Bill" Kenney lived with her until she passed, but he could have been better to her. She loved black coffee. She was always 1st one to arise. She made the coffee "boiled of course" had hers and filled the pot with water, for him when he got up. Ha, Ha.

    The rose of my life, Anna Lyden Kenney, when we lived in the house in Block 17, that was burned by an arsonist had some (3) Toulouse geese, better than a watch dog, (the old gander) Ralph Jennings, sheriff, lived in the adjoining house and said more than once, coming home late, he could never sneak in but those dam geese let out their blood curdling noise that would wake the dead Ida, wife of Jack Thrasher a Jackson County roadmaster, was to see my darling one day and decided to go through the backyard gate. Darling warned her of the ugly old gander and she said oh I'm not afraid of him. He grabbed her by the calf of the leg and she yelled for mercy. My dear said her leg was black and blue where the old devil bit her.

    Ida Cimborski & I played in the old blacksmith shop of her father's on the S. W. corner of Block 17, 3rd St. many a day.

    How well do I remember, the first train that came from Medford on the Rogue River Valley Railroad, about the year 1890. Mother helped me up to the south window, next to the S. P. Jones house next door to see it coming in as far as the M.S. feed barn.

    The Lee Jacobs family Lee, wife & Eula lived in a house that occupied the property where the concrete building stands south of the nursing Home on 5th St, across from the Jacksonville Museum and he was a partner with John F. White in the general merchandise business in the early 1890s in the Sachs brick on the north side of California St.

    John Dyer who was city marshal about 1895 lived in a house that occupied the place when the blockhouse now stands adjoining the city hall on So. Oregon St.




Memoirs of Chris J. Kenney Page 47 (ms 69, 70)

    Agnes Devlin, whose home was on the Big Applegate, the now Harlan Cantrall ranch, was an early school teacher of mine in the lopsided schoolhouse in Jacksonville, that burned to the ground, the present school on the hill is the 3rd school there.

    Mary Foster Lyden, mother of the rose of my life Anna Lyden Kenney, passed on in April of 1907, and soon thereafter Anna, went East to visit her sister, Elizabeth Abernathy of 232 Holcomb Ave., Detroit, Michigan. The 1st of September 1907, Chris Kenney after 4 years of her company, journeyed there and on Sept. 25, 1907, we were married, by Rev. Locke of the Episcopalian church at her sisters home.

    The source of irrigating water for the St. Marys Convent, & C. C. Beekman home was by pipe line from a spring adjoining the Chris Ulrich park on So. 3rd St., east side of the street just after crossing the 2nd bridge on S. 3rd.

    The white climbing rose on the corner of Block 1, Calif. & Oregon sts. at the well was planted there, the "Lyden House" site, by the rose of my life, Anna Lyden Kenney, then Anna Lyden, just after the turn of the century.

    My Father "Tom," T. J. Kenney who was born on the corner of Main & 1st sts. in Dec. 23, 1855, told me many times the above well, where the rose bush was planted could never be pumped dry and at one time, I recall it overflowed and run nearly to Jackson Creek, its flow is out of a crevice in the sandstone. The well is only about 12 ft. deep and is not connected with any of the tunnels from mining.

    The upper Britt ditch was a very popular walk for fellows & their girl on sparking jaunts.




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Memoirs of Christian J. Kenney Page 48 (ms 71, 72)

    Early-day brick was made on the old Sam Phillips place, today the James Noble brick home, So. 2nd and on the old Christian home, owned by the Late Anna Lyden Kenney in the early 1940s, on top of the Jacksonville Hill west side of the road (original road) to Applegate and Sterling.

    Our favorite swimming place was Chris Kreitzer's dam this side of the city reservoir west of Jacksonville on the north fork of Jackson Creek during the 1890s.

    After 58 years of a happy married life I have met sorrow and must learn to live with it.

    When Donald our son was 5 years old the year 1914 on the 4K Ranch, on Yale Creek he saw a large rabbit in our corn field and run to tell me to get the 22 and shoot it, I did get the gun and, it sit there so very innocent. I said son scare him give him a chance he did but he only run a few feet and stopped to eat a cabbage plant my darling had just set out, then I fired and he was our meat. His meat was as white as a chicken & 9# did he weigh.

    My cousin Lewis Ulrich started to rack Image? out a yellowjacket's nest in the fence of the Ulrich barnyard and did they pop it to us. We had faces like a full moon. Boys will be boys.

    My mother's brother, Chris Ulrich, had a contract once to sprinkle the streets from the city hall to the courthouse by means of a tank on a iron-wheel wagon drawn by his team around the turn of the century. He pumped water with a centrifugal pump run by a steam engine in his planing mill on Fifth St., having a 3000-gal. redwood tank on a tower for storage, located on the spot where Legg's service station is today corner 5th & California, at the bridge over Daisy Creek.


Memoirs of Christian J. Kenney Page 49 (ms 72, 73, 74)

    Adolph Schultz and Chris Ulrich once had a heated discussion on the so. side of California St. on the sidewalk, in fact in front of the then telephone office. It finally developed into a fist fight down they both went, Chris had whiskers Adolph had a good hold on these and Chris got a firm grip on Adolph's throat. Bystanders separated them but many whiskers lay about.

    Silas J. Day, abstractor and legal advisor, who had an office at the McCully House now Doll House, cor. of Calif. & 5th sts. in the late 1900s had a home at the bridge west of town. A freshet in old Jackson Creek went in his back door and out the front door even though he had a breakwater built, so he hit for high ground to live on the corner of Main & 1st streets. My father Tom Kenney was born on that corner in the year 1855, Dec. 23. Silas had a son Elmer and his father wouldn't allow him to go to the circus so he rigged a shotgun to pull the trigger and blew the top of his head off. Silas also had a daughter Mame who assisted her father in his office for many years. She married Henry Dox, C. C. Beekman's bank clerk & accountant, and a daughter Pearl Dox was born Myrtle Lee 1st curator at the Jacksonville Museum. When she passed on her name was: Maymi Day Dox Nelson O'Brien Fiske., she always had cotton in her ears, & was known as "cotton ears."

    Frank Zell, who operated a city museum and sold articles in the museum and pocketed the cash, received from them was a tinhorn miner. I sold a coffee mill to to grind some quartz rock so he could pan it for the gold therein. The mill losted quick.

    Frank Zell (188) had a boy Douglas, or Doug, he once rented a cabin from us in Block 17 after his wife died, he was of very little value to the public, he only lived for his own crooked self and that's no Chinaman's dream.


Memoirs of Christian J. Kenney Page 50 (ms 74, 75, 76)

    The rose of my life, Anna Lyden Kenney, interceded in an old miner's behalf as to welfare allowance, namely a Mr. Hatch near the Off Mine He got such a meager allowance $600 a month and a Mrs. Brown was the head of the welfare in Medford she talked to her & for no benefit, so she wrote to Gov. Martin of Oregon stating the facts & forth with results came at once. His allowance was doubled, which did help.

    Henry Bleecher of Poormans Creek on the mail route to Sterling owned several hundred acres there & farmed, he was a small man and a very unlucky individual, driving horses who were well fed therefore full of life and he had more runaways breaking up his wagon & an arm or a leg of his own. The farm was owned in later years by a Henry Mankin, a very honorable & good citizen.

    The thought also recalled of a Henry Bowden, who had a road house and bar, carrying Rogue River rotgut whiskey where one could get his whistle wet, and of course careless imbibing produced a tangle of the legs and feet and thickened tongue this also a very unlucky devil had a team of horses for his mode of transportation. They had little to do, consequently they were full of vim & vigor & would run at the drop of the hat, therefore he received a break of some kind or a gash, but somehow survived them all for a future bout. Bowden lived over the Jacksonville Hill on the old road to Big Applegate, about 3½ miles from town.

    Earnest Foreman, a remittance man from England had a boy team & buggy and while living at Buncom on Little Applegate, made many trips to Jacksonville, and I do really believe he never failed to load up on Scotch whiskey. He was often picked up by farmers going home as he looped the lines of his team over the dash board & if he got out the team often went right on home without him.

    Bob McGill done assessment work for J. Duggan at his claim on Jackass.

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Memoirs of Christian J. Kenney Page 51 (ms 76, 77)

    Mike Brood Sr. and Nate Russell of John Mule Creek (Jackass) mined for J. W. Opp at his mine near the City Reservoir and were the very unfortunate men to be blown to atoms from the explosion of a box of dynamite in a tunnel of this mine.

    Charles Nickell, editor of the Jacksonville Democratic Times, once had a 14-month vacation at McNeil's Island, a U.S. government institution for ones who could not be trusted at large.

    Harry Love called himself the Frisco Kid, lived in the Lyden House (now demolished) in the 1930s, when mining was done by sinking & drifting then hauling to the surface by windless the muck to be washed down sluice boxes over riffles to recover the gold. He was caught with tweezers picking out the gold and he made a very hasty get out of town, when warned to and no one ever heard of him again.

    At the famous old Lyden House John Lyden (owner) and Pat Swayne, who owned a big cattle ranch, at the mouth of French Gulch up Big Applegate River, many a time played checkers up to the wee hours of the next day but a stranger played once with the very same checkers and left the house in a queer sort of mind and run up the Jackson Creek Canyon and it disturbed John Lyden, so he deliberately put board & checkers in the heating stove & never allowed the game to be played again. His integrity was beyond reproach and his interest in an individual was whole hearted always.

    At this writing Mrs. Lucinda Hubbard at 728 East Jackson Blvd., Medford, Ore., still lives, who is a daughter of Thos. G. Reames, who was a partner of CC Beekman before his death for a number of years. She had a brother, A. E. Reames, who was as colorful a lawyer as ever practiced in the courts of Oregon. Two other brothers, Clarence and Charles, were good also, Lawyers. All passed on. A. E. was appointed to fill U.S. Senator McNary's unexpired term after his death.


Memoirs of Christian J. Kenney Page 52 (ms 78)

    My Father "Tom" T. J. Kenney was a member of the Jacksonville School Dist #1 board when the brick school was built and spent much time at the construction sight, looking at the blueprints to see in a general way if plans were followed correctly.
    Space in the walls were being filled with brick bats and this was stopped. My memory says the contractor was Snook, I could be wrong. He was from Ashland, Ore.

    When the 4-room lopsided school house burned acorns by the bushel rolled out of the corners of the south end where yellowhammers placed them in a large hole they pecked there. The flagpole was pecked full of holes. [Acorn woodpeckers peck the holes.]
Chris J. Kenney, Southern Oregon Historical Society Research Library MS179



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