Martin Angel, the first white male child* born in Jackson County, died at Grants Pass, Thursday, October 15, with Bright's disease, aged 58. Following the discovery of gold in Jackson Creek in 1852, the Angel family was one of the first to settle in the new Eldorado, locating a donation land claim between Medford and Jacksonville, where the birth of the young Martin was celebrated in 1856. During the strenuous pioneer days the Angel farm was the scene of many exciting circumstances, and some of the battles of the Rogue River Indian War were fought around the Angel home place [skirmishes, maybe, but not battles], the elder Angel being one of the victims of the lust for blood of the redskin warriors. He was shot from ambush, and his body now rests in the Jacksonville cemetery, within a short distance of where he fell.
    Martin Angel remained in the Rogue Valley during his boyhood. In early manhood he drifted to the state of Washington, where he pioneered in the development of the Puget Sound country. He assisted in laying out the original townsite of Tacoma and joined the engineering crew on the Northern Pacific Railroad.
    In 1897 Martin Angel joined the rush to the north and was with the first to reach the Nome fields. Here his training in the southern Oregon gold mines stood him in good place, and success in the search for the golden metal was with him. He later returned to the "states," and a few years ago came to Grants Pass and purchased a farm in the lower valley. He made his home in the city. He never married.
    Funeral services were under auspices of the B.P.O.E. The remains will be shipped to Medford, from which place they will be escorted by Medford Elks to the Jacksonville cemetery.
Medford Mail Tribune, October 17, 1914, page 6  *Click here for more claimants to the title.




Compare the credible and contemporary accounts above with the mythologized versions below, which thoroughly scramble the facts and order of events:


    It was a long, long time ago, yes, several years before Oregon became a state, that a mule lost his footing on a narrow mountain pass in the Big Applegate country and slowly tumbled to his death in the swift waters of the river below, thereby giving Mule hill its mediocre name. Yet that incident is closely related with the historical background of southern Oregon, and carries with it the horror of a murder by the Indians, and for that reason Miss Alice Hanley, well known county pioneer, has remembered the story and related it when interviewed at her home northeast of Jacksonville recently.
    When only a trail led over the hills from Jacksonville to the wilderness of the Applegate valley about 80 years ago, Martin Angel, who lived on a donation land claim south of Central Point, later known as the Cooksey place, started over that trail on horseback and was shot in the back by Indians. The murder occurred after Angel had traveled about half a mile beyond the Jacksonville hill along the route of the present Jacksonville-Ruch highway.
    Angel's horse, spattered with blood that bespoke of the tragedy, traveled back to Jacksonville in less than an hour, and soon a band of volunteers was organized there to follow the murder trail. Tracks in the dust led them past the body of the murdered man and on to the upper section of the Applegate valley, where darkness forced them to wait overnight. It was early the next morning as the horsemen made their way along the dangerous trail around Mule hill that their mule, which they had overloaded with ammunition and food in their haste in packing, lost his balance in the shell rock and rolled into the river. It was in the spring, and water was unusually high and, since the bank below the trail was so high and steep that the men were powerless to rescue their drowning mule, they last saw him drifting downstream, his four feet in the air, indicating that his load had made him top heavy.
    Even though without food and most of the ammunition, the brave volunteers forged ahead, chancing defeat of the Indians with the ammunition carried by each member of the company. After traveling four miles, the volunteers sighted the object of their long search, the camp of the Indians, later to find that the red men had fled, leaving their squaws, children and one blind man in camp, which incident is responsible for the naming of Squaw creek and Squaw lake.
    The squaws were breakfasting when the white man approached, and even though the visitors were hungry, thoughts of poisoned food prevented them from eating. They took the remaining members of the encampment back to Jacksonville as prisoners and when, even after a long period of time, the braves who probably had escaped through Elliott creek to the Klamath, did not return for their wives, they were set free.
    A double murder, believed to have been an indirect result of the Angel murder, occurred in Jacksonville some time later when some quick-tempered fellow shot two innocent Indian boys who, it is believed, were sent to town to determine the height of the feeling here. The shooting of these boys was held as a grave mistake. The motive for killing Angel, other than a possible personal grudge, remained a mystery, since the man's wife was a French Canadian.
    Nevertheless, the murder of Angel and the resulting pursuit broke up the stronghold of the Applegate Indians. After a long period of absence, the fugitives joined the remaining tribe of Shasta Indians in the Rogue river valley and later took up their above in the Illinois valley.
    Miss Hanley is certain of the authenticity of this story, since it was told to her by a member of the volunteer band from Jacksonville, Dan Fisher of Central Point vicinity, who once pointed out to her the places of interest in that eventful trip over the Applegate trail.
Jacksonville Miner, June 1, 1934, page 1  Transcribed by Laura Ahearn, McKee Bridge Historical Society.