Lane County Historian

Lane County Historian Residence of B. M. Richardson, 10 miles west of Eugene City, Long Tom P.O. Lane County, Oregon LANE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Vol. XIV, No. 1 Eugene, Oregon Spring, 1969 LANE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Mrs. C. A. Huntington, President 740 West 13th Avenue, Eugene, Oregon 97402 Stuart W. Hurd, Membership Secretary Rt. 2, Box 345, Eugene, Oregon 97401 Mrs. Stoddard Malarkey, Editor 2075 East 27th Avenue, Eugene, Oregon 97403 Manuscripts submitted for publication should be typewritten and double-spaced.If the author wishes to retain his copy, then please submit a duplicate copy for consideration. CONTENTS THE WEDDING RING by Loris Inman BOHEMIA MINING DAYS: A REMINISCENCE 5 by Ethel Reeves MacKinnon JESSIE BROCK. 7 by Hallie Huntington A LETER TO THE EDITOR FROM ANDREW JACKSON ZUM WALT 13 JOSH CAIN, HORSEBACK MAIL CARRIER . 14 by Lawrence Hills IMPRESSIONS AND OBSERVATIONS OF THE JOURNAL MAN 15 OF THE SEPARATE PROPERTY OF MARRIED WOMEN . 17 STORY AND HISTORY OF THE LOG CABIN INN AND COUNTRY KITCHEN AT McKENZIE BRIDGE . 19 2 7he WecIcIinj Rinj By Loris Inman The Benjamin Richardson family Her name is Ruth Wolford. Para- crossed the Plains in 1846, a good dine's brother, Thomas, was born six years ahead of the flood of emi- a year after Dma and Milt were grants to take donation land claims married. This was not unusual for in 1852. The family took a claim at pioneer families for the oldest the foot of the present Richardson children to be married before the Butte and built their cabin on a youngest brothers and sisters were littleshelf of land that is now born. covered by the stone abutment to We visited the old home site at the west end of the dam that now harvest time in 1968. With us was forms Fern Ridge Lake. Ruth Wolford, then 88 years old. Of the four sons, the eldest was Her father died early and Ruth Benjamin Milton. lived with Uncle Milt and Aunt The Archibald Gibson family Dma for a time. She wished to see crossed the Plains in 1852 and lo- the old home place. The spring is cated a claim and built their cabin filled with water weeds; the wal- on a little hill one mile east of the nut tree that Ruth loved to climb Franklin P.O. (John Benjamin, as a child was blown down in the present owner.) One of their daugh- Columbus Day storm, but it is still ters, Malinda Paradine, married alive. Milton Richardson, a neighbor less The old road coming up the east than a mile away. foot of the hill that was the old The wedding, the first recorded road to Crow before being replaced wedding in Lane County, took place by Central Road is now abandoned. on April 1, 1852. The ruts are still there, where they The couple soon selected a claim* ran between the house and the on which to make their home. On old milking corral. June 9, 1852, they filed on prop- When Milton and Paradine were erty now owned by Lennie Halder- married, Milt gave hisbride a son and Kenneth Nielson, in the plain gold band for a wedding ring. Central community, known in re- Inside the band were inscribed the cent years as the Halderson Place. initials, "M.P.R." One wonders, Milton and Paradine became was the ring purchased six years "Uncle Milt" and "Aunt Dma" to previously in the East, or was it a large number of niecesand made from a gold nugget by a nephews: Dma had eight brothers goldsmith? and sisters. Her brother, Lew, It might be considered a cer- whose claim is now Gibson Island tainty that the ring was made in Fern Ridge Lake, had a family locally, from the story by Mrs. of fifteen children. It is noteworthy Annie Brown, 83. She says her also that of her brother Thomas' mother told her that when her family, one daughter is still living. mother, Sarah Jane, was married, *If any reader wishes to locate this claim, here are the directions: At the intersection of Cantrell Lane with Central Road, off Perkins Penninsula, takeCantrell Lane east ¼ mile. The house south off Cantrell Lane is the home of Lennie Halderson, next east is a large knoll or hill. This is Kenneth Nielson property, and south of the hill about ¼ mile off the road is Milt's old farmstead location. Some buildings and old orchard trees are there. The house is gone. 3 her uncle, who had a gold mine James Thomas was married to asked her if he could have the Kate Stickles, Kate wore the ring. ring made out of a nugget from his Their son, Harvey, married Louise mine. She consented and it was McHeffey, but Louise did not wear done. Mrs. Brown's mother was one the ring. His son, James Thomas of Dma's sisters, and the uncle the Second, named for his grand- who had the gold mine was one of father married Barbara White. Dma's brothers. Since Dma had Their son, James Thomas the five brothers, Mrs. Brown does Third married Jacqueline Lynne not remember which one it was. Pertolle at the bride's home in The marriage of Sarah Jane to Newark, New Jersey on June 6, W. C. Inman, took place on June 1968. The ring young Tom pre- 2,1867, fifteen years after the sented to his bride was the one Richardson marriage, so whether his great grandfather Milton pre- it would have been from the same sented to his bride, Paradine, 116 mine is only conjecture. Sarah years ago. The ring now has in- Jane's ring is now 101 years old scribed inside, in addition to the and is in the possession of Hattie initils "M.P.R.," the initials Hardesty, granddaughter of Sarah "J.L.R." The young couple treas- Jane. When Milt's and Dma's son, ure the ring very highly.* *Lynne graduated from Beaver Co1iege and is now attending Columbia University. Young Tom graduated from Colgate University, magna cum laude. He is now attending Princeton. MILTON RICHARDSON PARADINE (GIBSON) RICHARDSON 4 gohemia 'Y//linin Zai: __'4 Remicence By Ethel Reeves MacKinnon Raising my three young children in an age of dishwashers, clotheswashers, and other modern conveniences, it is hard for me to realize that not too long ago I spent some time in what was prob- ably one of the last "outposts of civilization." My father, William Reeves, was the chief engineer at the Helena Mine, the most remote mine of a chain of mines in the Bohemia mining district. It was situated one and one-half miles from the Champion Mine, six and one-third miles from Lund Park, where we kept the car in winter. We entered the district in the spring of 1936, when I was three years old, and we left in Septem- ber, 1939, when it was time for us to go to school. Seventeen men were employed at the Mine, working three shifts, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Gold, copper, and lead Mr. and Mrs. William Reeves skiing on were mined, using a flotation mill the mill roof, Helena Mine. process which removed the ores a"self vacuum" within. To boil from the earth. these eggs, one had to pierce the There were four of us in the shell with a pin first. In addition, family: my father, who was the there was bacon, ham, and dried crew boss, my mother, my older beef. Provisions were brought in brother, Bill, and I. My mother, weekly in the summer by truck, who was 24, cooked for us and the but all provisions for the winter crew. She had to prepare four were brought in mid-November for meals a day. She baked eight the entire winter. loaves of bread daily, and alter- The food was prepared on a nated between four pies and three Lang Range, which was a wood cakes, daily. Naturally, the food stove.It had a built-in griddle was plentiful and delicious. There upon which the hot cakes, bacon, was much canned and dried fruit, fried eggs, etc. were cooked. Noth- and the eggs were kept in barrels, ing tastes as good as food fried on preserved in "water glass." "Water the griddle of a wood range! glass" was a clear, viscous liquid Fortunately, mother didn't have which completely sealed the pores to do the crew's laundry; there of the egg shell, hence producing was a hired man for that. But she did wash and iron for us. Water we spent much of our time playing came from a spring above the bunk in the snow. Once I fell down a house, piped to it, and it was thirty-foot slope, because of melted heated by the wood range. A large snow beneath the crust, but I was hot water tank provided plenty rescued, unhurt, by my father. for daily needs. Washing was done We played "King of the Moun- in an electric agitator-type ma- tain" on the bunkhouse, because chine with hand-cranked wringer. there was eleven feet of snow Since the light plant produced which covered the house on the only direct current, the washer had uphill side. to be equipped with a special DC We also skied. Mother made "ski motor. socks" to slip over the back of our Ironing was done with an electric skis to enable us to climb more iron(also DC) which was con- easily. Even they skied down the trolled by plugging in or unplug- mill roof, which was a 30 degree ging to get the desired tempera- slope.

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