April 28, 2021
Liz Writes Life
Garden
Last weekend’s rain and cooler temperatures were certainly
welcome. I picked-up my grandson, Bryce, one day after school and we got most
of the garden area grubbed-up. The weeds
were not too bad.
The law clippings that I gathered from a local lawn (not
mine, I don’t have a lawn) provided good protection to the soil throughout the
fall and winter. I am pleased. The clippings are deteriorating into the soil,
which is good and dandelions seem to be 90 percent of the weeds. Luckily, they
dig up pretty easy. I believe the clippings smothered most of the mallow weeds
that were such a problem in one area of the garden. I mulched the lawn
clippings a good three-inches deep in that spot.
Even though I am grumbling at needing to hand-irrigate every
few days, I will admit that once I get out there it is very pleasant. And there
are perks! One late afternoon, I was sitting in a lawn chair irrigating the
rhubarb and munching fresh raw asparagus. The breeze was just right for a
70-degree-plus day. Black cat ducked under the fence, I looked to the blue sky
and noticed three golden eagles floating in huge circles. They were likely
looking for food, (they typically grab the road kill pretty quickly) but I
think they were having fun playing, swirling and catching the updrafts with
just slight tilts of their wings. I
watched for a good 10 minutes. My point: I shouldn’t grumble. This is a pretty
good life out here in God’s country. Yep, sure do love my open space!
Local history
Well, I don’t know how to do this justice so I will just
jump-in. I recently read a family history book that Scott Valley’s Tery Timmons
Drager authored. It is self-published and hardbound. The layout is enticing
with generational charts, lots of photos, short bios and local historical
stories. I am impressed!
Yep, she has Siskiyou pioneers in her heritage. For many
years, Tery gathered information with the hopes of putting a book together. But,
she said it was the Covid-19 lockdown that finally pushed her into doing the
lengthy project. I love history and to me it is important to get it written and
recorded.
Tery was able to trace families back to Scotland, Ireland and
the Azores. She actually titled the book with a joke: Did you hear the one
about the Irishman and the Portugee? It really isn’t a joke, cuz these Irish,
Scotch and Portugee families did very well after arriving in Scott Valley.
With the help of a genealogist and family, she traced one
clan back to 1370 in Scotland. Several families sailed to the Virginia Colony
and served in the Revolutionary War. I like the story about Orpha McMechen, who
was born in 1796 in Marshall County Virginia, and married James Davidson. In
1830, the couple moved with their children to Indiana. Eleven children were
born to them and I think ten lived to adulthood.
In 1854, Orpha was well-worn in years, but would not be left
behind, when several grown children moved by wagon across the plains and Rocky
Mountains during the early California gold rush era. They landed in Scott
Valley, which was just beginning to be settled. In fact, a single house marked
the spot where now stands the town of Fort Jones. Orpha was one of a handful of
white women in the area at the time and was known to open her home to the “orphan
and wanderer.”
Orpha Davidson died in 1876. One of her son’s Dr. David M.
Davidson, born in 1822, purchased an old hand-press and printed the first
newspaper in Fort Jones called the “Scott Valley Mirror”. In the early 1850s,
David became the first Siskiyou County supervisor for the Scott Valley area.
Another son, William D. Davidson, born in 1827, mined in
Deadwood down present-day McAdams Creek Road. He engaged in merchandising and
began a butchering business to supply meat to the Fort Jones area. In 1854, in
company with his brother David and Charles McDermit, he built Old Etna (flour)
Mills at a cost of $35,000. He then built a store in Etna and the Etna Hotel.
In 1857, they built the Scott Valley Distillery. He also owned a cattle ranch
in the Fall River Valley in Shasta County and moved there in 1872. He was then
elected to two terms as Shasta County Supervisor.
A daughter of Orpha and James was Hanna Jane Davidson born
1829. She married Charles McDermit, who was the first sheriff of Siskiyou
County.
Oh, this is a good one, James A. Davidson, born 1838, settled
on the home ranch in Fort Jones and married Amanda Quigley in 1867. They raised
eight children and an orphan girl. James, a Democrat, served as district
supervisor for 32 years (beginning in 1925) and worked to preserve the history
of the county by helping to found and maintain the Fort Jones Museum.
Well, there are lots more stories of these talented and
rugged men and women. I haven’t even gotten to the Irish Timmons, Samon and
Sullivans or the Portuguese Simas, Simmons and Valin. Then there is the larger-than-life
Manuel Browne, who claimed he was born at sea and was saved by the ship’s First
Mate, who was Portuguese, when the ship went down in the English Channel
drowning his parents. His father was the ship’s captain. Tery said they are not
sure of his heritage, but Manuel spoke five European languages, when he came to
Siskiyou County after jumping ship in 1861 in San Francisco.
I’ll try to share some of this history every-so-often. It is fascinating
what was accomplished without our 20th and 21st century
technologies.
May peace and calm be with you this week. Smile – just cuz it
makes you feel better!
Liz Bowen began writing ranch and farm news, published in
newspapers, in 1976. She is a native of Siskiyou County and lives near
Callahan. Columns from the past can be found at: lizwriteslife.blogspot.com.
Call her at 530-467-3515.
# # #
No comments:
Post a Comment